Three Lemons

Three days later and the lemons are still good. Trying to loosen up. This time on PastelMat paper and feel this is moving in the right direction.

I began with the dish in the scene, but quickly got rid of it as it wasn't adding to the composition.

Three Lemon Wedges, 4 x 5.5", pastel on Pastelmat paper.

Sliced Lemons

While I had the lemons out, I decided to get the pastels out. I always hope to go pretty loose, but end up tightening up. Doesn't take long for the lemon to start to dry out.

Lemons

Worked in the studio this afternoon in oils painting lemons. I love the cobalt blue pottery I found at the thrift store and thought lemons would compliment it. Tried to keep it fairly loose.

You Know You're An Artist When....

You know you're an artist when you go to the grocery store only to pickup some interesting produce to use for painting subjects! I spent some time yesterday going to thrift stores for still life subjects. I am always drawn to the pottery, but can never find things with texture so I went to the grocery!

I spied the radish bunches and even though it's not a vegetable I eat, I bought them. I soon remembered that it is impossible to mix fuschia with basic oil paint pigments. You need to buy the color in the tube. Knowing it is not a color I normally paint, I tried to come close with what I had. Didn't get very close with the color at all!

So I decided to get out my pastels which includes several sticks of fuschia! I projected the photograph of one of the radishes onto my flat screen tv. I prefer to work from life, but knew the foliage would soon wilt, so took pics and put the radishes in the frig. Process shots below:

 Alcohol wash over first layer of hard pastels.

Final painting

Winter Doldrums and Using Technology while Painting

I always have a lack of creativity in winter. Not really depression, just painter's block. I have at least three of these each year, and don't get too worried when they hit.

I finally got the oil paints out last night. After searching the laptop for a photo reference, I found a great way to view the photo while painting! I recently bought a new flat screen tv for the studio. (Yes, I like to multi-task - paint with either a movie on, or a podcast or book-on-tape going. Not much of a music fan...). I wanted to use the new TV for projecting my reference photos. Originally, I was planning on just hooking up my laptop to the TV and using it like a projector using the VGA cable. Then I remembered this TV also has a USB port! DUH. I know this is very common on TVs these days, but didn't think about using this feature much before! WOW what a great way to see the photo. I just loaded a few photos onto my thumb drive and plugged it in the back of the TV, and the TV recognized the thumb drive, and I opened the folder to select a photo. Much better than printing out on paper. Now that I think about it, I need to explore using the HDMI ports between the TV and laptop. Hmmm......

Anyway....Back to painting! The TV is across the room, so it kept me from putting my nose right into the image to pick out details, but the clarity and brightness on that screen far surpassed just projecting the image directly from my laptop. With the image across the room, I painted more loosely - which is a goal.

Below are progress shots of the painting. Not too bad after months of using pastels instead of oils! This is a masonite board coated with gesso and lightly sanded. You may be able to see the lines of the gesso in the finished painting, which I enjoy seeing as it adds movement to the scene. Forgive the glare from the wet paint.

"Across the Pond", oil on board, 8x10

 

Juried into OPAL exhibit at Butler Institute of American Art

Excited to announce these two pastels were juried into the Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio, for the Ohio Pastel Art League show. The exhibit hangs from March 6 - April 17.

"A River Runs Through It", 9x12, pastel on Ampersand Pastelbord

"Glensevern Inlet Fog", 11x14, pastel on Ampersand Pastelbord

All About 2015

I tried to take better notes all of 2015 so that I could more easily look back on my artistic career in 2015. I am always surprised when I go back and tally my previous year!

Below is my accounting of my accomplishments (I am sure I missed a few minor things and keep in mind that the majority of the artwork were not perfect and in many cases just experimental:

Accomplishments for 2015

• Painted Plein Air - 29 times
• Sales - 4
• New Work – 67
• Exhibits – 3
• Awards – 1 Viewer’s Choice
• Organized Artist Retreat – 2
• Art trips – 4
• Pop-Up shop via MAC – 1
• Attended Workshops – 3
• Tinkering Projects - 4
• Joined Etsy - (shop stats - 3032 views, 106 favs, 32 sales!)

2015 was a very productive year!!

New Paintings

I haven't been too productive this fall, and in addition to that, when I am I tend to post art on my Facebook Artist's page instead of Blogger! Please like my page for quicker updates:  Nancy Vance Artist

Here are a few snapshots of what you may have missed! Thanks for following along on my blog and I will try my best to get back to blogging!

December Tinkering Time

I was back to tinkering in the studio this week. Earlier this year, I made board with a threaded nut to attach to my tripod. I was hoping for a good flat surface, easily attached to the tripod where I could tape pastel papers while painting. At that time, I could only find up to a 12" square piece of wood. I constructed it so that the front was flat and smooth with no holes from the threaded nut. Because I don't own a table saw, it wasn't an option to cut a piece from a larger board.

I never used it much because it was kinda small. I needed something bigger. One of the artist/designers of one of my new outdoor painting boxes just offered something similar to what I wanted! The issue for me was that it was $85, made of aluminum, and heavy at over 5 pounds. It was really big at 18x24" - a bit too big for me!

I'd been looking for a way to make my own without asking someone to cut a board the size I preferred. Finally I decided that I just needed to attach something on the board I'd already made. I bought one of the primed masonite painting panels (less than $5 using a coupon!) at the art store for the surface. I chose the 16x20" size. Now I needed a way to attach it without putting holes in it!

I also wanted it to be easily taken off , not permanently attached. I headed to the hardware superstore to look for ideas and found the perfect molding to use - "panel cap". I also bought some LocTight Go 2 Glue to attach the wood to the back of the board.  In all, this new addition was less than $10 - Saved $75 from the aluminum version! My version is just over 3 pounds, included the original wood.

Below is the finished project.

Sliding it into the new "rails"

I put a piece of square dowel as a "stop" (this is really shown upside down here, the stop will be on the bottom when mounted in the tripod)

Stop at bottom (although the rail is snug enough to hold the board from slipping, I would expect over time it will become looser, so felt I'd need the stop.)

Above is the original intent - to have the working pastel surface on the left (I am left handed), and the photo of my scheme taped on the right.

I also added some square dowels along the front bottom and sides, to serve as a stop/shelf that may be useful in both vertical and horizontal orientation. This would be good when painting on boards instead of taped down paper.

Another successful tinkering project!

MAC Pop-up Shop

I'm have art included for sale in the McConnell Art Center (MAC) - Pop Up Shop at the Shops at Worthington Place!! Come out and see all the great original handmade art for sale!

Date:   Nov. 21, 2015 - Jan. 10, 2016.

It is that time of year again! The MAC is thrilled to announce their second MACtastic venture at the Shops at Worthington Place! They are temporarily renting a store front and showcasing local artists work. The MAC Pop Up Store features original, handmade, one of a kind art work on a consignment basis every weekend, kicking off on Saturday November 21, continuing through the holidays until mid-January.

A beautiful place to collect wonderful original local art, supporting your creative community.

MAC Pop-Up Store hours:
Fridays 12-4pm
Saturdays 9am-3pm
Sundays 10am-3pm

The Shops at Worthington Place
7227 N High Street
Worthington, OH

Trouble with Canvas

I continued my weekend plan to paint some small paintings for practice. I used a small 5x7 board with canvas. I had a real problem working on this surface. I prefer a smoother surface but thought I'd use this board for practice. I fought the texture all the way through and even had a hard time getting a good photos.

Process shots:

The final photo - even my iPad had trouble getting a good shot. I need to stick with smoother surfaces!

Rainy October Day - Back to the Studio

I've been lazy about posting on the blog. It's so much quicker to post on my Facebook Artist page "Nancy Vance Artist". Please feel free to "like" my artist page if you'd like to be kept up to date quicker.

Today is a cool, rainy October day. I wanted to work on the fundamentals in my oils and get into taking the time to do sketches before I start. I was working from a photo I took last year which was cropped to a square. At that time, I had some some quick sketches, but never painted the scene. (right side of photo) Although I had already done much of the design from cropping my photo, I still wanted the practice of sketching. I drew a new sketch on bristol paper. I also was reusing a painting board which was a wipe down from a bad painting.(middle left).

 This shows my sequence creating the new sketch:

 Then I used a transparent dark oil mix to map in the design onto the painting board:

I didn't stop to take progress shots, so here is the final painting:

"Shadowed Path", oil, 6x6, Ampersand Gessobord