Jun 08

A Week For Miniature Pastels

By Administrator Painting, Photography, Events and Adventures No Comments »
Typically large pastel paintings don’t sell at local festivals so I decided to create miniatures for the festival this weekend.  Miniatures are more affordably priced and will fit on almost any wall.  These are painted on Wallis sanded paper.  These first two I used mainly Unison pastels.  The smaller painting is 2.5 x 2 inches, the larger 5 x 5 inches.  After looking at them for a day I saw changes that needed to be made.  The mountains in the small painting needed to be darkened and both needed refinement.
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Below: 2.5 x 2 inches
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Below: 5×5 inches
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Paintings from earlier this week and a new one today.  The trees on the hillside is 3.5 x 5.5 inches.4P1080065web
Below: 3.5 x 5.5 inches
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Below: 2.5 x 2 inches
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May 25

This Weeks Paintings

By Administrator Painting, Photography, Events and Adventures No Comments »

I was inspired by recent visits to the Knowlton Gallery in Lodi and a visit to the Haggin Museum in Stockton.  The Knowlton Gallery’s current show, ‘Finding Beauty, Backroads Close to Home’ was landscape paradise, especially Clark G. Mitchell’s pastels.  The Haggin Museum is exhibiting the Pastel Society of the West Coast’s 25th Annual International Exhibition.  That was pastel heaven to drink in all the styles and techniques of other pastelists.  It’s been a long winter and a slow to start spring as well, so these two trips within a few days were quite a tonic to shake off the winter dust and begin painting again. 

This week I painted two little 5×7’s.  The first was of oaks and their afternoon shadows, inspired by the recent trips through the rolling foothills.

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The second 5×7 is a vineyard.

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Today I had a landscape in mind to paint but the blue iris bloomed so I had to paint it while it’s fresh.  Tomorrow I’ll paint the iris fully open in the third space.  This is a half sheet of Art Spectrum’s Colorfix paper.   13x 19

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Feb 22

New Miniature Paintings

By Administrator Painting, Photography, Events and Adventures No Comments »

It’s February, almost time for the poppies to begin blooming in the Merced River canyon along Highway 140.  Two years ago the poppies were phenomenal…I think it was 2 years ago.  This week I painted two new miniature pastel paintings, both 4 inch square.  The first one is of a poppy covered canyon hillside, along the Merced River.

Beginning layers.  I first lightly sketched the scene in red pastel pencil.  I save scraps of photo paper when I make a mistake printing or don’t need an entire sheet of paper.  These are handy for printing little photographs for guides when painting.

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The finished painting, 4” x4”.

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The second 4” x 4” painting.  I did not print out a photograph to use for this painting.  I simply looked at my photograph on the computer….full screen.  This scene was of the last fading light casting warm tones on a hillside.

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