"Evening Glow" at La Conners Flats.

 "Evening Glow", 7x5"

Pastel on Wallis paper.

Another beautiful day (or should I say "evening'?)

when our Plein Air group of pastelists  painted just outside

of La Conner, Washington earlier this August. This time

our painting location was a beautiful garden/nursery

called "La Conner Flats".

Many of us decided to paint in the garden, but other part of the group

was mesmerized by those beautiful fields, what were surrounding

place from all directions... Really it was hard to make a choice of

what to paint, when just about everything is looking so inviting.

 Little houses, surrounded by blooming flowers.

 Old farm buildings.

 Golden fields.

You can clearly see what my choice was.

Just a small part of beautiful view above.

While I was painting, my dearest husband was wandering all around

and perhaps got to see more then I did. (Again!)

But those are main rules of painting Plein Air.

You need to make Your choice of the subject and just do it.

You can not do it all.

Sometimes my "photographer part" taking over my "painting" part 

and then instead of painting of one beautiful subject I just starting to

wander around as hunting dog and returning back with collection

of many beautiful pictures, but none of them are paintings.

Good part about it - maybe some of those will became painting

sometime in the future.

Only time will tell.

"Trinity", WIP Oil Pastel finished!

"Trinity", Oil Pastel on Pastelbord, 14 x 11"

This evening I finished my Oil Pastel to my total like.

There is nothing also I want to do with it and simply call it finished.

Off to the next project!

www.TatianaMyersFineArt.com

"Trinity", WIP, first update.

Today I'm starting with Oil Pastel application. Trying to keep

place organized and quantity of paints/tools to the minimum.

Of course monitor is one of main tools. beside of that I need

selection of colors I'm going to use, some brushes and solvent.

This time I'm working with Gamsol.

 Above - Oil Pastel and solvent application of background.

Also - work on vase.

Nothing is done with flowers yet.

Below - fragment of painting at this stage.

On my last picture today I demonstrate beginning of Oil Pastel application

on my flowers. I normally start from my darkest darks and brightest brights

to establish value relationships and make my pick of just right pastel sticks.

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... to be continued ...

"Trinity", WIP.

"Trinity" is my newest work-in-progress for upcoming 2013 Oil Pastel Society show.

Florals are naturally making one of my very favorite painting subjects, especially when 

it come to Oil Pastels. But normally I do concentrate on flower itself us my main subject.

This work is different and brings in play much more elements of classical Still Life.

I'm paying just us much attention to the vase, as to those flowers

and this is something slightly different for me... but I do enjoy the process.

This painting is done (again!) on Ampersand Pastelbord, my support of choice

for most of my Oil Pastels. Very durable, easily accepting all sorts of solvents and

possible painting corrections. This stage You see here is an underpainting done

watercolor pencils what then turned into wash. Working with washes gives me ability 

to preserve most of "tooth" on sanded surface and make application of Oil pastels 

more easy to control, because of better adhesion. 

I'm finished with my underpainting now and ready to start working with pastels.

Looking forward to this evening, when I'll have time to start...

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...to be continued!..

www.TatianaMyersFineArt.com

"Colors of Rainier", Pastel.

"Colors of Rainier", 7 x 5"

Pastel on Wallis.

This summer I was lucky to be able to visit Mt. Rainier National Park.

Place was in pick of bloom. Sub-alpine meadows burster with color.

It was... amazing. Jim and I had almost 3 full days to explore around.

We saw flowers, waterfalls, beautiful vistas and more...

On a last day we decided to take it easy and do not wander around that much.

We spend our last day around Paradise area and at the end of day

I even got to paint a bit A-la Plein Air.

We picked up rather remote and secluded picnic area

and I did quick study on Wallis with my pastel pencils.

Main object of study was a group of interesting looking pine trees.

While I was working on those, I totally missed the fact

that my dear husband got attacked by the gang of vicious mosquitoes.

Apparently mosquitoes won and Jim had to escape to the car

and locked himself there... naturally it was the end of my painting session.

And this is what I ended up with:

Fortunately for me (and for my painting), I got pretty good idea about my subject

and I had no problem to finish what I started on location in Washington

when we were back home in PA.

How You can see, if I would work from location picture and not

from my memory, I wouldn't be able to do it.

Great illustration of fact that "vision of artist and vision of camera

clearly is not  the same thing".

www.TatianaMyersFineArt.com

"Pretty in Pink", pastel.

"Pretty in Pink", 5x7", Pastel on Pastelbord.

This small painting of orchids I did on green Pastelbord what I colored with India ink

to make it look black. Working on black is different task what I do not perform that often.

This small painting done mostly with Caran D'Ache pastel pencils, but some Girault pastels 

were used us well.

Currently available at Daily Paintworks.

Click here to see the auction.

"Little Italy" on my easel!..

 This is another painting I finished on location A-La Plein Air

during our summer trip to Washington.

One day our group painted at this intriguing location what was

good enough to be a some part of rural Europe- Italy, or France.

It was gorgeous day, our mentor, Richard McKinley did

his beautiful DEMO on the morning and then we had all the rest of day

for ourselves - to paint and to explore things around.

I finished a small field sketch and then did this bigger painting

and yet still have enough time to take a good walk around with my camera

and get some good photos of old building at their beautiful natural setting.

I'm positive - I'll be working more on this subject.

But now I can do it in full comfort of my studio.

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...To be continued....

To see more of my finished works, please visit my web site:

www.TatianaMyersFineArt.com

Back from Mt Vernon, WA.

Last two weeks I spent in Washington State at Dakota Art Center Pastel workshop. 

It was my third year of studying in group of Richard McKinley together

with some of my old and new friends.

I can not say enough about what a wonderful experience it was Dakota Art guys

made it all simple and pleasant. We had two big class rooms to work at case if we needed

to be indoors and plenty of beautiful locations to paint A-la Plein Air.

If any of students ran out of some supply, it also was available right here, so we really didn't had to worry about anything, just concentrate on our work.

I will be posting more pictures of this trip later,when I'll get to it.

Meanwhile, there is some snap shots from two of painting locations we were using during this time.

Above - beautiful view of farm fields around Padilla Bay Shore Trail.

Below - another beautiful off-shore location where we worked one evening..

I can not recall a name of it now, but it was gorgeous place to paint!

My Plain Air painting. Underpainting stage, on location.

Same work, just about finished.

Maybe I'll will take another look at this one before signing it,

but otherwise I conceder this one done!

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...To be continued ...