Pastel painting of an extreme close up of oranges on a tree in sunny Italy.

Pastel painting 28  inches x 14 inches

I’ve been talking about the pastel paintings I’ve been working on for my upcoming show at the River Gallery for months now, but haven’t posted any. Y’all probably don’t think they even exist. I thought I’d post one that I just finished last week as a little preview of the exhibition.

I’ve been working on a lot of paintings of Italian buildings and scenery but had the urge to explore some of the beautiful orange trees in the Umbrian region I visited last year. I especially wanted to capture the feeling of bright sunlight hitting the fruit. This piece is reminiscent of some of my earlier Orchard paintings but with a Mediterranean twist! The pebbly surface of the rust-colored primer I worked on, helped to give the texture that you see in the old stone wall.

This artwork was created with:
Paper: Illustration board with Terra Cotta Art Spectrum Primer
Medium: Rembrandt Pastels and Sennelier Pastels

Plein air watercolor landscape painting of a rock garden surrounded by hostas

Plein air watercolor painting   9.5 inches x 7 inches $100

One more watercolor landscape from our latest garden site. It was my last watercolor painting of the day and I had really loosened up on this quick sketch. The only thing I didn’t catch was the little line of water cascading over the rocks…

This artwork was created with:
Paper: Saunders Waterford Watercolor Paper
Medium: DaVinci Watercolors

Plein air watercolor painting of a flower garden against a shaded wall.

Plein air watercolor painting   7 inches x 9.5 inches

This cutting garden looked very dramatic against the shaded house so I thought I’d do a watercolor painting of it. But there was so much detail that I couldn’t capture all of it. I decided to do a loose, freestyle version of what I was seeing. That is an ongoing challenge for me with floral paintings. Include every little bit of foilage and flower, or try to get down the general feeling of the view?

This artwork was created with:
Paper: Saunders Waterford Watercolor Paper
Medium: DaVinci Watercolors

Plein air watercolor landscape painting of a roadside garden

Plein air watercolor painting   9.5 inches x 7 inches

We had a whole gaggle of plein air garden painters at another new site on Wednesday. It was a small area and we were all packed in, gabbing and painting. Pure heaven. This time I decided to switch back to watercolor landscapes. It was sunny and warm again so the colors dried quickly and kept their vibrant hues. I love watercolor painting in this type of weather! This site still had a lot of plants blooming so it was a perfect time to get in a couple more floral paintings. Every day that passes moves us closer to autumn…

This artwork was created with:
Paper: Saunders Waterford Watercolor Paper
Medium: DaVinci Watercolors

Plein air pastel painting of a stairway in a garden

Pastel painting 9 inches x 12 inches

We were given a new garden to paint last week and I stopped by about midday to check it out. It was a lovely home site deep in the woods and their stairway up to the house made a great subject for a garden pastel landscape. Unfortunately, Michigan is inundated with mosquitoes right now and it is downright treacherous to be out plein air painting. I managed to work for about an hour on this piece and was happy with the outcome!

This artwork was created with:
Paper: Kitty Wallis Belgian Mist Pastel Paper
Medium: Rembrandt Pastels and Sennelier Pastels

Art lovers and friends,

I can’t believe that I am writing my 500th post. What started out as a little blogging experiment to encourage me to paint every day, has become almost a way of life for me. I committed to this process, and now, over 3 years later, I can truthfully say it HAS forced me to paint more often. Even when there was dishes to wash and closets to clean and weeds to pull, I painted. And in so doing, I have increased both my skills and self confidence.

As you can imagine, I’ve also increased the amount of paintings in my studio. Many of the artworks you have seen in this post have sold or have gone off to one of my galleries. But I have many wonderful pieces that have not found homes. Soooo in celebration of my 500th post I’m giving…

25% OFF

all in-studio artworks

August 18 – September 8, 2011

Check through the previous posts on my blog and if you find a piece you like, and it is in my studio, I will give you a 25% discount. Its a WIN-WIN proposition. You will have a wonderful piece of art…and I will have a bit more room to create another one!

Pastel landscape painting of the Huron River at Delhi Park in Ann Arbor, Michigan

Pastel painting 12 inches x 9 inches

I set out last weekend, planning to paint another garden pastel landscape at one of the beautiful homes on next year’s Ann Arbor Garden Walk. But I got waylaid. I was driving by the Huron River and I had a change of heart. I stopped at Delhi Park and set up for a plein air painting on the bank of the river. I am such a sucker for water scenes and they are soooo hard to paint realistically. The shadows and highlight on the moving river changed every second. I fuzzed my eyes and memorized the way the water looked at that very moment and tried to capture it.

This artwork was created with:
Paper: Sienna Sennelier La Carte Pastel Paper
Medium: Rembrandt Pastels and Sennelier Pastels

Pastel portrait of a young football player

Pastel painting 12 inches x 18 inches

All male testosterone in figure drawing session last week! This strapping young football player posed in his uniform for the class. In this pastel portrait I decided to take a step back from all the color I usually use, and work only in black and white pastel.

Maybe I was overloaded from the 5 hours it took me to completely revamp my pastel set-up in my studio. I’ve known for a long time that I really needed to take off the papers on each stick and arrange all of them by color and value–not by brand, the way I had for years. Everything I’ve read says that this is the best way to work. I finally bucked up and did it. I broke each pastel in half and put one half with the code number on it in a storage box. Now, when I run out of a color, I can go to my stock, get a new stick, and know which pastel to reorder at Dick Blick’s.  I usually use NuPastels and a variety of soft pastels. Here’s what my new set-up looks like:

This artwork was created with:
Paper: Canson Mi-Tients Steel Gray Paper
Medium: Black and White Rembrandt Pastels

Plein air landscape painting of a rock garden in front of a home.

Plein air watercolor painting   9.5 inches x 7 inches

The light shining through the silhouetted trees attracted my attention at this lovely home. I had to paint quickly because the heat that morning was overwhelming. But that kind of weather can actually be a good when doing watercolor landscapes. The washes and layers of color dry quickly, which helps me avoid creating pools of muddy color. Sometimes my mind and hands work faster than the medium allows. I get excited to get all my thoughts down before the previous layer has dried enough to accept another pass. Watercolor paintings take a bit of patience and forethought…and sometimes I have it…and sometimes I don’t!

This artwork was created with:
Paper: Saunders Waterford Watercolor Paper
Medium: DaVinci Watercolors

Plein air watercolor painting of a pine tree near a meadow garden.

Plein air watercolor painting   7 inches x 9.5 inches

Another plein air watercolor landscape painting from the Ann Arbor Garden series I have been working on. I’ve visited this particular garden 3 times now and each time a find a completely different, intriguing view. The wild flowers made and interesting highlight against the dark depth of the forest behind. The flowers are fading fast in Michigan, but I hope to visit the gardens a few more times to do some  pastel garden paintings …

This artwork was created with:
Paper: Saunders Waterford Watercolor Paper
Medium: DaVinci Watercolors

Pastel portrait painting of a young blond teenager.

Pastel painting 11 inches x 17 inches

We had a lovely young teenage girl pose for us last week at our figure drawing session. She is a neighbor of a wonderful pastel artist and teacher in our group, Janet Kohler. (some of Janet’s work can be seen here.) Sarah was dressed in purple and we set her up against a purple backdrop. Wow! With her blond hair and pale skin tones, the color just popped in my pastel portrait of her!

This artwork was created with
Paper: Canson Mi-Tients Steel Gray Paper
Medium: Rembrandt Pastels

Plein air watercolor landscape painting of a July garden in Ann Arbor, Michigan

Plein air watercolor painting   7 inches x 10.5 inches

Another  garden view from the older home I’ve visited a few times. I keep switching back and forth between plein air watercolor and pastel garden paintings, trying to decide which medium works best for flower filled landscapes. They each have their good points…guess I will just keep painting in both mediums…