Winter Walk

Winter Walk, pastel, 5 x 7 inches

 

This might be my last Friday afternoon session painting for a while because it is Spring and I have a huge pile of dirt waiting to be spread on the Studio courtyard flower garden. See three steps below.

Follow Up

This is a follow up to my March 10 post.

In that post I began work on two paintings done from one reference photo. The painting on the left is my impression of the photo. The sky is blue, the grass is green, etc.

The painting on the right shows what might happen if you take liberties with a reference photo. I changed the colors and the composition while keeping what is was that drew me to the scene in the first place.

Collection of the Artist Sale

If you are like me, over the years you have created paintings that become personal favorites and end up in your Collection of the Artist.

I love my collection and enjoy them daily in all rooms of our home including my studio. However, I am creating two wall-work-stations for students I will be teaching in my studio this summer and I need to free up a wall. How about a Collection of the Artist Sale? Here are the first two offerings from my collection: Northwest Meadow (award winner in the Randy Higbee 6x6 inch show several years ago) and Twilight (memories of our dog park and Annie as a puppy). They are going to my Etsy Shop: BBNewtonArt

on the easel today

On the easel today at about 50% complete: Two 5x7 studies of a simple country scene. On the left, the sky is blue, the grass is green... I've painted many of these sticking pretty close to the reference photo (shown below).

Reference photo for the scene above

But, one of my favorite painting challenges is taking liberties with the landscape. A pink sky in the middle of the day? Blue grass? That's my goal for the painting on the right.

I'll be teaching two one-day workshops on this subject in July. To write the syllabus for the workshop, I'm working two paintings at once to document exactly what liberties I take. Color is the most obvious one but what else? hmm...

By the way, I'm posting paintings for sale again on the Etsy Shop I opened almost exactly three years ago. I'll be adding more work soon. Returning Beginners Luck, I sold two today. Yay! BBNewtonArt

Lemon #5

Lemon #5, pastel, 5 x 7 inches sold

Another little painting of color, texture and light.  Once again, on Pastelmat but this time I wanted to contrast the smooth plate with the texture of the lemon so more soft pastels were used for additional pigment to move around. Usually, a firmer pastel is the best choice for me to get spontaneous strokes on this surface. See a couple steps below.

Wild

Wild, pastel, 5 x 7 inches

Sometimes I push a pastel painting past the point of no return. When the words "labored, contrived, sweet, pretty and cute" come to mind, it is time for me to hose it off (Wallis paper), brush it off (most other papers) or get the baking soda out (Pastelmat).

I would love to teach a workshop where each student brings a painting that has gone past the point of no return. Together we could breathe new life into it. But it finally occurred to me that most artists probably don't want to haul that type of painting out in front of a room full of other artists. Maybe a private couple hours with me? Anyone interested in that?

This painting was a big mess (well, as big a mess as a 5x7 can be). I finally took most of the pastel off and began again with ABANDON. Yay! I'm happy with it now.  This one is available on Etsy.

Workshops

That's a screen shot from my Facebook page about the three day workshop September 30 through October 2, 2016. My thanks to NWPS President, James Geddes and the Board for inviting me and for being so accommodating to my requests.

Also, I will be teaching four one-day workshops in July 2016 in my Studio. I'll be sending out an email soon to those on my "interested" list.  Studio workshops are limited to 4 students each day. Here are the dates:

 Still Life - exploring color and texture $100
Thursday, July 14, 2016 
OR
Friday, July 22, 2016


 

Landscape - taking liberties with the landscape $100
Thursday, July 21, 2016
OR
Friday, July 15, 2016

Pastel 100 Winners

The 17th Annual Pastel 100 Competition Winners have been published in the April 2016 issue of the Pastel Journal. I am honored to have been on the Juror team.

Pink Grapefruit #3

Pink Grapefruit #3, pastel, 5 x 7 inches sold

More fun with grapefruit. Love this subject.

Right brain, left brain: Tax Time

This is a photo of my little sun-room office. Keyword is little. I have two work surfaces that I swivel-chair between. One has my lovely big iMac where I look at art, review reference photos and post small paintings to my Daily Paintworks gallery. The other surface is where most of my tax preparation is taking place. Art images right brain, tax prep left brain.

I was in the middle of figuring out the percentage of our home that is used for my business and applying that to all expenses that are deductible. In 2015 we lived 5 months in one home and 7 months in this home. Different square footage, different percentages. I was just about to tackle Utilities with the percentage deductible by law as a business expense when my computer (right behind me) sounded "DING" for new email.

Swivel to right brain

There was an email from an artist I follow on Daily Paintworks. She paints DAILY! Her paintings are lovely - that's why I subscribe to her posts - and she isn't giving them away but every one is for sale. I wondered...does she really sell every one? I have been very fortunate with DPW sales but if I painted and posted every single day, I think I would end up with lots of inventory (which I don't want). So....

Swivel to left brain and grab the calculator.

Swivel back to right brain and iMac to look at how long she has been posting on DPW, how many paintings total are in her gallery, clicked on "show available", divided the available by the total to solve for the percentage of sales over the past 5 years.  Hmmmm...would I be happy with that percentage? What am I doing?

Swivel back to left brain and my tax deadline but thinking about art.