Looking Back

Recently on Facebook someone posted a picture of some really old pastels they were given as a gift. One was a box of Alphacolor pastels, which is the same brand I used in high school art class. That got me to thinking about digging out my old artwork. I knew I had a couple pastel drawings which I thought were pretty good at the time.

These are the two sketchbooks which I used in art class a couple years to turn in my homework. The teacher (Judy Felgar) would write the grade, and occasionally, a comment on each assignment. It was fun looking back at these and had to laugh at several of the comments!

If I would have heeded her words all those years ago, I'd be a much better artist today - "more lights and darks!" LOL

 PRACTICE - draw from life!!

Here are the two pastels I remember. My first pastels and I have loved using them ever since!
The first one below was drawn on Canson paper. We had an elaborate setup in the classroom, with fabric and props for drawing models and still lives. There will be many more versions of this scene in the following sketches.

 This was my first pastel on velour paper. Loved the feel of that paper.

I kinda like this one below. We did a lot of collages pasted with rubber cement.

I did many portraits and figures....

I even did some cloisonne metalworking - theses are some design sketches for that. Wish I had the finished piece to show you.

These things are kinda fun. They are made kinda like paper dolls or snowflakes where you fold the paper up and cut many at once. These appear to be 'rock stars'. Weird......

There are many more things in the sketchbooks, but this last one I am most proud of. 

In class, we were doing printmaking. Here is my original pencil drawing, followed by a sheet of hard plastic that was etched with an awl to create a printing plate:

 These are text prints.

 and I had to show you the back. The paper we tested on was scrap mimeograph paper! That really dates me! HA

 Here is the final print, which I entered into a local art contest, and won a Merit award!