Every time I finish a skyscape pastel painting, it becomes my new favorite. I know it is just a momentary infatuation, and as soon as I start another pastel painting, THAT one will become the new favored child.  I used to think that “crush” feeling was kind of infantile, even self-centered, but now I know it is part of my process of creating a work of art. I HAVE to be in love with what I am painting at any given minute. Its the only way I can have the courage and stick-to-it-ness to finish another piece and keep growing as an artist.

This sunset painting will be heading to Tvedten Fine Art in Harbor Springs, Michigan for the summer season. It will also appear in an ad I am running in the May/June Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine which features me as one of their “Today’s Masters”…    

This artwork was created with:
Paper: Burgundy Art Spectrum Colourfix Pastel Paper
Medium: Rembrandt Pastels and Sennelier Pastels

Watercolor and pastel floral painting     7  inches x 10.5 inches  $150
Please contact me if you are interested in this or similar artwork.

Like last year, I spent my Tuesday mornings in Florida at the Naples Botanical Gardens. Every week, they allow artists to bring in their supplies and easels and set up to paint among the flowers for 4 hours. All of the plantings there are gorgeous, but I am always drawn to the huge assortment of water lilies that dot the many ponds in the park. In my plein air watercolors of these gems, I like to zoom in with a tight crop that accentuates the beauty of individual lilies, but also gives an abstract quality to the composition.

I started out this floral painting in watercolor, but I wasn’t completely happy with it so I decided to layer pastel over some of the areas. I use a fairly textured watercolor paper, so the strokes and weave of the substrate is quite obvious. I’m still grappling with working with multiple mediums at one time. Always experimenting…

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

Watercolor landscape painting      10.5  inches x 7 inches  $150
Please contact me if you are interested in this or similar artwork.

Naples is filled with beautiful buildings, all in an Italian-style stucco with red tile roofs. Condos, hotels, businesses and stores all follow “the format.” Although this style creates a very unified look to the area, it can also be a bit redundant. Everything looks the same!

Luckily, I’m an Italian at heart, so the style appeals to me. I painted this plein air watercolor along a canal with a friend from Ann Arbor who also winters down south. I’m always drawn to architecture paintings and this building with the light shining in the bay windows caught my attention.

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

Plein air pastel seascape painting    6  inches x 9.25 inches
Please contact me if you are interested in this or similar artwork.

On the Naples dock again, this time looking back at the shore. There are well-spaced benches up and down the whole dock, which makes it perfect for artists wanting to paint plein air pastel seascapes of the surrounding views. It was a hot, windy day with strong waves hitting the shore at constant intervals. It was a challenge to try and capture the waves at the same position every time they came in, but I did my best to imply them. I again worked on a small piece of green Art Spectrum paper, allowing some of the color to peak through.

This artwork was created with:
Paper: Green Art Spectrum Colourfix Pastel Paper
Medium: Rembrandt Pastels and Sennelier Pastels

I’m still working diligently on the new sky series that I started in January. Part of my goal with this group of pastel paintings is to loosen up a bit and play with color and light. This particular piece is about as close as I come to an “abstract” composition, while still being very recognizable as clouds lit by the afternoon sun.

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

Pastel portrait painting      18 inches x 24 inches
Please contact me if you are interested in this or similar artwork.

Our 9-hour  figure drawing session was amazing! 5 artists chipped in to pay Janet to model in the nude for 3-hour sessions for 3 straight days. Our lovely hostess allowed us to set up in her studio and leave our easels, pastels and paints in place from day to day.  We worked well together, breaking every 25 minutes or so. I was worried that I would get bored with the same pose, but time flew by. I felt for the first time, that I actually took time to consider my decisions, get proportions correct, and conceptualize my pastel portrait to create a finished piece of art, not just a sketch. I was especially happy with the hands which are always torture for me!

I worked on a large piece of tan pastel board called Solid Ground that I got from my friend Mary Beth Koeze’s art estate sale when she passed away.  I feel like she is still whispering in my ear when I work with her supplies. It’s a very “hard” surface that feels more like a gessoed board than sanded paper. It took me a bit to get used to, but I really like it. I brushed water into some of my pastel work and it became paint that I could move around easily on this substrate. The boards are available at HudsonHighland.com.

This artwork was created with
Paper: Canson Mi-Tients Grey Paper
Medium: Rembrandt Pastels and Sennelier Pastels

Plein air pastel landscape painting    12.5  inches x 8.75 inches
Please contact me if you are interested in this or similar artwork.

Early morning on the beach. It was a moody scene for a plein air pastel seascape but I loved the dark sky against the sunlit beach. The Sea Grape trees created needed structure…

This artwork was created with:
Paper: Burgundy Art Spectrum Colourfix Pastel Paper
Medium: Rembrandt Pastels and Sennelier Pastels

Plein air pastel landscape painting    9  inches x 12 inches
Please contact me if you are interested in this or similar artwork.

The beaches around Naples, Florida are really lovely and a lot of them are quite secluded. I painted this plein air pastel seascape late one crystal clear morning. I was working toward a looser application of pastel and a more abstract composition. Leaving the details behind and just trying to capture the feeling of a quiet moment in time…

This artwork was created with:
Paper: UArt Pastel Paper
Medium: Rembrandt Pastels and Sennelier Pastels

Pastel painting 11 inches x 16 inches
Please contact me if you are interested in this or similar artwork.

Lovely Jan was our model at figure drawing session a couple of weeks ago. She is a professional model and I love drawing her…which is a good thing because this week I will be painting her for 3 days in a row! One of my artist friends, Carolyn Reed Barritt, is hosting a 9-hour session at her studio. I have never drawn anyone for longer than two hours.  Short sessions have forced me to capture a likeness quickly, with a somewhat loose style in my pastel portraits. I am really excited to see attempt this longer challenge and see what type of work comes from it!

This artwork was created with
Paper: Canson Mi-Tients Grey Paper
Medium: Rembrandt Pastels and Sennelier Pastels

Top: Watercolor plein air painting     9.5 inches x 5 inches
Bottom: Pastel plein air painting        11 x 8.5 inches
Please contact me if you are interested in these or similar artworks.

I loved the entrance to this trendy little restaurant in Naples so much that I painted it one day in watercolor and then went back the next to tackle it in pastel. I had to position my easel in a prime parking space on a busy street to get a good view. I thought people might be miffed, but every person who walked by stopped to watch and comment on my progress. Not a bit of nastiness and I handed out a ton of business cards! I really like doing cityscape paintings. They are often difficult to set up, but usually more than worth the trouble…

This artwork was created with:
Paper: Yupo
Medium: Da Vinci Watercolors

Plein air pastel landscape painting    9  inches x 12 inches
Please contact me if you are interested in this or similar artwork.

Another situation where I simply turned my easel around after painting the previous posted seascape. Everyone on the beach came by to see my progress and I met a lot of nice people, mostly from the cold northern states!

The sea grape trees that line the beaches in Florida are an intriguing species. Their large waxy leaves are tinged with gold and red and when the light shines thru them they seem to glow. I wanted to catch a little of their sparkly color in this plein air pastel landscape. The large, distant tree in the background made a nice counterpoint to the spiky grasses.

This artwork was created with:
Paper: UArt Pastel Paper
Medium: Rembrandt Pastels and Sennelier Pastels

Plein air pastel seascape painting   11 inches x 14 inches
Please contact me if you are interested in this or similar artwork.

This plein air pastel landscape was painted on my first day out down south. It was a bit cloudy so I headed to the beach. I tend to stay away from sunny, blue-water seascapes. I like to capture a little more drama and subtlety when I paint the ocean. As I’ve said before, it always takes me a week or so to get used to the different climates, colors, shapes and atmospheres of a new location. This was a start.

This artwork was created with:
Paper: Richeson Pastel Paper with a watercolor underpainting
Medium: Rembrandt Pastels and Sennelier Pastels