Morning sketch.

Did this one this morning with cup of tea in my hand (tea got cold, or course!)

Cove Creek farm with farm building removed (just didn't feel like painting a barn, it was about a big bush on the front, not about the barn at all!).

Erengy Oil pastel, 92 colors set

about 9 X 12 "

Bathing of my Oil Pastel painting.

Today I realized that my new WIP of Oil Pastel on Ampersand is covered with 1/4 inch of dust from all the construction works.

This is not funny! I had to do something with it before I can even attempt to finish my painting.

I found a simple solution - gave my painting a bath in the bathroom tub under some running slight worm water and then let it dry. 

It worked like a magic!

Painting is looking brand new and very... Oil Pastelish. Nothing is wrong with it at all. Naturally I wouldn't try anything of this sort, if it would be a work on paper, what this one obstinately is not.

Lesson is learned: or keep the dust away somehow, or give your painting a bath. ( Irina thought I'm nutz, but liked it after all).

Pansies framed.

Today I took a picture of this painting in its new frame.

Simplon Plein Air. Tru Vue Conservation glass. 

Evening Skies.

This was a fast right before bed "almost sketch" I did yesterday night. Picture of sunset few miles away from our home.

Another miniature on Ampersand board 5 X 7.

Mixed Soft Pastels. 

Pastel pencils.

Pansies in Oil Pastel. Finish.

Today I finished this painting. Now I have to wait  for frame, I ordered and hopefully it  will look good together. But you never know. :-)

Panisies in OP - WIP. Next step.

Here is an update on  my Pansies.

No. It doesn't go as fast, as I expected, and will take few more days till I will finish it (I'm not even guessing any more how long it might be).

Right now I managed to finish  first layer of OPs and started building my painting  up - mostly on the top right corner.

I also including a pic. of my work station. It is nothing much, but works well for me. Still hope to finish with this one sometime soon and then go back to my other WIPs.

 

Pansies in Oil Pastel. WIP.

Hello, everybody!

Lately I was working with paiting of some Florals, what is sort of unusual for me. I guess it is an influence of the spring!...

 This one more painting of Pansies ( I already did them in Soft pastels not long time ago!) was a one big and total experimentation. 

First of all I was curious to try Ampersand clay board. Bough it, tried it - didn't like it at all. Put it away, maybe will do something later with it. It was a 6 X 6 board. 

And yes, it was pansies too, and awful ones at my opinion.

Second board was 8 x 8 and I decided to prime this one with Colourfix and try soft pastels on it. Results were just us awful, I my first try without Colourfix, with OPs.

Then I tried to do a water wash. No luck. I tried Terpentinoid Natural instead. It worked, however not on the way I expected. Pastels became something more like Gouache, what was OK with me, but it DIDN'T dry!
So much for trying with Softies!

Being stubborn and greedy I decided to safe a board and do something about it. Next idea was -go back to Oil Pastels and try if it will work. In fact it DID. Soft pastels became a good underpainting for Oils, the rest of underpainting I did partially in Neopastel and partially simply in Oil Pencils. I'm finishing it with Holbeins, using some silicon shapers and some wash with very same Terpentinoid. 

This will be nothing fancy, work is very simple and I'm not going to spend weeks of my time of it, like with some others. General idea was - to try new support and some new techniques.
After all I think it paid for itself, I'm pretty happy about this one and some day will go with something bigger and more complicated of this sort.

Oh, yes, one more thing: reference photo is from my trip to local K-mart. We had no time to do anything fancy with photoshoot of spring flowers, but went around of few local stores and took some pretty decent pictures. Just an idea, but works in our busy times. 

I Hope to finish this one today. At worst case of scenario - tomorrow. :) 

Sunny field.

I just got my Ampersand pastel board 5x7 sample pack, what I wanted to try with my soft pastels... and so I tried it!

This is a painting of the farm field right next to my friends farm, where we are keeping our horses. Day was going toward the end and it was pretty interesting light in the farmers field and all around, so I hope I managed to reflect it in my painting. The most complicated part was a dark mass of trees on the left, but they came out better then I expected. 

     Ampersand pastel board 5x7

Mixed soft pastels (mostly Holbein)

Mixed pastel pensils.

Charcoal underpainting.

I like Ampersand for both - soft and oil pastels. However for soft ones I like it and for OPs I totally LOVE it. It bringing colors up like nothing else... Someday I'll post here what I did with it, but it is not a right time to do it yet.

Backyard Plein Air.

" After contructors left"

Yesterday, after our contructors left for weekend, I finally was brave enough to take a look at our backyard... It look like a battle field now... No other comments.

I had no time to do any seriouse painting, so I did this wondrefull sketch and called it " After contructors left". 

Fabriano Tiziano paper.

Mixed pastels.

Azaleas WIP.

This beautiful bushes grows on our local school yard. I took several reference photos. This is my favorite one:

I painted this small picture from image above, just to get my colors right. It is a miniature painting 6 X 6 " on watercolor paper, primed with Colourfix. Mixed soft pastels.

Then I started on final version. This will be 11 X 14 ", Sennelier Pastel Card, mixed pastel.

So far I'm done with first layer plus some little extras.

 And this is how I finally finished it. Probably will frame it tomorrow, if .... wait a second, it IS tomorrow!...  Oh, well. Nothing unusual.  :-)

Plein Air Lilacs.

This week I was collecting some reference images for future painting, worked a little on my future show work in OPs and also did some Plein Air paintings and sketches-just-for fun. Yes, it was busy week! :-)

We have lots of trees and bushes blooming around, so very pretty. Lilacs and Dog Wood and bright Azaleas just asking to go on paper.

So, here is my latest sketches.

"Night Lilacs". Plain Air painting, Black Mi-Tente, mixed soft pastels. 8 X 8".

The second painting is another lilac bush, few miles away from our home.

Canson sketch book, about 8 X 10 ", Erengy 92 colors Oil Pastel set.