Learning Curves

I had lots of new things to learn today. I recently purchased a Guerrilla Painter Cigar Box plein air set. Next week is the first outing of my plein air group and I wanted to get it setup this weekend to get used to it. Today's setup was using the pastel trays.


I needed to make a 'to-go' set of pastels, so broke my pastels into smaller pieces (GASP!!!) so that more would fit. I guess most pastel artists regularly break new sticks into smaller sizes, but man, was it hard for me to do this, especially with my Unison handmade pastels! Here's the final set, and the box also shows the different size panel brackets for 8x10, 5x7, and 4x6 panels in the lid.

Another new issue for me was learning to paint in a vertical fashion, on an easel. In the beginning, it bothered my posture but once I figured out the right working height, it eased up. I really prefer to work flat on a table, but I assume working on an easel would give you a less distorted view of your work. It should also be much easier working in plein air so that the view will be in the same visual plane as the easel.

Today, I was using a 10x8 Sennelier La Carte Pastel card. This was another learning curve. I love using suede matboard, but decided to try this today. The color is actually a bit bluer than the photo shows below. To the right is the crop I chose to use of Karin's photo.

Left - first color. Right - midway into painting.

Final painting below.
I wanted to get more vibrant color in her bikini, but didn't seem to have a bright enough pastel.

Boogie Beach Board
10"x 8"
Soft Pastels

See the other entries on Karin's DSDF site.

Drawings

Last night was our monthly Worthington Art League meeting. We had a lovely model posing for us. These were short, 10 minute sketches. I always forget how much fun it is to just draw.... I finally got around to using my travel sketchbooks for this work.

I was afraid to draw her perky nose as it really was, for some reason....

Pastel - Sushi

'California Roll' - 6" x 8" - Pastel on Suede Matboard

Here's my entry in Karin's current challenge on DSDF. This was pretty fun! I love how it turned out.

Watercolor - Boy with Donkey

I like parts of this, but the composition doesn't work. The background in the photo was so busy and I started out just blocking in shapes, but it got so confusing that I scrubbed them out and just blurred it. The guy behind the donkey - his hat showed up above the ears of the donkey, but when I put it in, it looked like the donkey was wearing a hat! So scrubbed that out too. Frustrated....