"Tea Time" finished!

What a great feeling!

To start and finish a pastel in less than a week. I wish I could work this quickly on every painting.

I am really pleased with this little painting. This was the first time that I worked on a surface that I made. It was done on a masonite panel with Golden Acrylic ground for pastels. I really struggled with the rough surface (I used an old paint brush), but I think overall it turned out okay. I may try my own surface again, soon.



Tea Time update

Here is an update on the "Tea Time" pastel for a 10" x 10" show.

This is kind of a midway point, I guess, this is how the piece looked this morning.

I like the way that the tea cup is arcing out of gray space into reality.



New pastel project underway

This is the beginning of a series of 10" x 10" pastels for a show coming up in Jan 2013.

I work so slowly that if I don't start now, I won't have anything for the show.

The title of the piece is "Tea Time". It includes an antique clock from my friend Paul Kant's studio, a wooden block from my collection, and an tea cup and saucer that showed up one day at my old Shirt Factory studio.



The Finished Pastel "Gourdgeous"

I know I had promised to do more updates on this pastel, but here I am finished and realizing that I hadn't done any updates from the last version.

So, anyways, here is the finished pastel, "Gourdgeous"

The varied gourds were a real challenge to paint and I had a great time exploring the surface textures and colors. I hope you enjoy the image.



Gordgeous In Progress

Here is the latest upadate on my pastel "Gourdgeous"

As you can see, I'm progressing from left to right and developing each gourd in turn.

This is a detail showing the area that I spent most of the painting session on yesterday. Hoping that the number of colors and their blending show up well.

Another Step By Step "Gourdgeous"

This is the initial concept for the still life.

The idea was a vertical format, but I found I didn't like the set up, so I went to my bag of gourds.

This is the resulting, modified set up.

I went from five gourds to nine, more challenging, also as you'll see below, I decided to eliminate the striped cloth, I felt it was too distracting.

The starting point, laying in the background.

I selected what I felt were "autumny" colors which I felt would go well with the gourds.

Beginning to lay in color and structure to the still life.

Being right handed, I work from the upper right to the lower left of the pastel.

This usually keeps me from smudging areas already laid in, but not always.

This shows a bit of detail, learned a new technique that I'm using on the Turban Squash. It's exciting to learn something new and to put it to use. Especially after working in the medium for as long as I have.

More updates tomorrow, will be carrying this through to the completion of the painting.