Watercolor painting of begoinias and grass pots on a deck.

Watercolor painting 5 inches x 7 inches $70 + shipping

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I’m finishing 2 large RiverStone pastels right now and I will probably post them later this weekend. So today I thought I would continue the theme of “Think Summer!”

I sat on my deck in the sun last July with a glass of white wine and painted our flower pots. I like painting small plein air watercolors to keep my skills sharp. The subject matter isn’t always important. I read somewhere that you should be able to make a good painting from ANYTHING. Welllll, I don’t know about THAT….

Just heard today that River Gallery sold 6 giclees prints of my Treescape series. Yahoo!!

Watercolor painting of green farm fields in Michigan

Watercolor painting 9.5 inches x 5 inches $100 + shipping

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It hardly seems possible that just a few months ago I roamed the countryside painting  landscapes of local farms. I captured this place, a bit west of town, in June when all of the crops were just beginning to explode. I liked how all the fields seemed to be pointing toward the farm buildings with their steel roofs highlighted by the hot sun. Watercolors are great for creating texture like the rough foilage of the crops in the forefront of this painting.

Watercolor painting of an old log cabin.

Watercolor painting 11 inches x 4.5 inches $100 + shipping

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This is a quick plein air watercolor sketch of the old log cabin at the Toledo Botanical Gardens. I am an absolute sucker for historical settings so this really drew my attention when I went down last year to paint the fowers. It has a garden that is full of crops that the pioneers would have planted in the early 1800s. And the interior of the cabin is full of primitive, wooden furniture.

This landscape was painted on yupo, a plastic-like paper that doesn’t absorb liquid. All of the colors pool together and stay very vibrant on the top surface of the paper.

Pastel painting of white maltese dog

Pastel painting 8.5 inches x 10 inches      SOLD

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My sister, Beth, was jealous of the pastel painting I did of my Australian Shepard, Roxy. She wanted a portrait of her  Maltese, Tucker. So I took a series of photographs to find just the right pose for the little guy. Hes a furry little thing with lots of personality and it was difficult to get him to sit still long enough to photograph him. I ended up combining a bunch of different references to get to this piece….And she likes it, she likes it!

Pastel Painting of pink flowers against a stucco wall.

Pastel painting of cascading red flowers and foilage.

For the last couple of years, I’ve entered pastel paintings into the Pastel Journal’s Pastel 100 Show Competition. And every year, they politely sent me my rejection slip. Until this year.

I recently received a letter stating that I had won honorable mentions for TWO of my floral paintings! Its a prestigious competition with entrants from all over the world, so I am quite excited. The two paintings I’ve posted today will be featured in the April issue of the Pastel Journal and are available through the River Gallery in Chelsea, Michigan.

Watercolor painting of a nude female

Watercolor painting 8.5 inches x 11 inches $100 + shipping

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In figure drawing class, we have about 20 minutes to capture the essence of the model. Drawing so quickly is difficult in pastel and charcoal, but is especially challenging in watercolor. Everything is fluid and the colors run into each other, rarely appearing the way you envisioned them. But sometimes that is a very good thing. I have a chance to step away from “overworking”, my favorite pastime, and create a looser, more dynamic image.

Watercolor painting of standing nude figure model

Watercolor painting 5 inches x 15 inches $100 + shipping

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Well who’d have thunk it? After checking my blog statistics, I found that there is quite a large amount of web users searching on the term “Jill Wagner Nude”. Unfortunately, (and luckily for you) I have no photos of myself in the buff. However, in an effort to keep my art audience happy, I will instead offer some of my watercolor paintings from recent figure drawing classes. Next week I will return to our weekly class and look forward to sketching in both pastel, charcoal and watercolor.

Pastel painting of winter snow

Pastel painting 10 inches x 10 inches $450 + shipping

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There’s no doubt about it. Spring, summer and fall in Michigan are glorious. Winter, however, can be a bear. We just received another 4 inches onto the 12 inches of snow we got last week. The HIGH will be in the single digits the next 3 days. I decided not to fight it but to glory in the beauty of my own back yard. This pastel landscape shows the sparkling, golden light peaking through the trees.

Pastel painting of Angell Hall at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor

Pastel painting 5 inches x 7 inches $100 + shipping

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Ann Arbor is full of beautiful architecture, much of it related to the University of Michigan.  One hot, sunny day last summer, I photographed this view of Angell Hall peeping through an umbrella of trees. I try not to recreate the “official-postcard” scenes of campus in my pastel paintings. In this small piece I wanted to simplify, simplify, simplify to capture only the essential elements of the scene.

Watercolor painting of a fountain in the old area of Louisville, Kentucky

Watercolor painting 6 inches x 9 inches $100 + shipping

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John and I traveled to Louisville last summer so that I could make sketches and photographs for a commission I had received from a couple down there. We visited with friends and ate at fantastic restaurants and, while John played golf, I wandered around the city. The historic architecture is fantastic and the downtown area felt very much like an old Southern city in the 1900’s. I especially liked the avenues of opulent Victorian homes. This fountain bubbled happily in the middle of a picturesque boulevard. It was 100 degrees in the shade where i sat to paint this watercolor painting.

Watercolor painting of trees, lillies and shadows against a green lawn

Watercolor painting 9 inches x 6 inches $100 + shipping

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While I am continuing to work on pastel portraits, I thought I would post some watercolor paintings from last summer. Remember? Back when it was warm and sunny? This is a scene I painted while sitting in  our backyard in July when all of the day lillies were just beginning to bloom.

Pastel painting 10 inches x 10 inches $450 + shipping

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I decided to take another look at the beautiful old oak tree that was my subject in the Treescape pastel painting I posted on December 20th.  I love the how strong, yet ancient it looked out there in the field all alone. Instead of focusing on its strength and texture, I wanted to show its “separateness” in this piece so I chose a square format that allowed more of the receding landscape to show. I really find it fascinating how the same subject can inspire different approaches.