Studio spring cleaning

The cleaning in the studio is going well but slow as I’m sorting through all the UFP’s, I keep come across experiments that I did a will back and I can now see where I can expand on them and take them in a different way. This pile is getting very large.

The garden is a different story and an on-going one ha-ha but it will not beat me.

Untitled

Acrylic paint 

10" x 12" Boxed Canvas

A Need to get Dusty

I had a great urge to get my soft pastels out and have a play with them this morning seeing as I have neglected them for over a year or so. As I spent last week walking around galleries, gardens and park I decided to take them outside and play plus it’s too hot in my studio to do much work in there. In doing so I have found a renewed respect for the artist who go out and paint wildlife as I found that the beggars just will not stay still long enough so I can take my time and do then justice haha.

So this is a soft pastel of a duck swimming done very quickly I got the shape down fast and just looked and guested the rest but I still think if they just stayed still long it would make life and painting a lot easier haha.

"Afloat"

Soft Pastels on burgundy Fabriano pastel paper (9"x 11")

Feb 2012

Sap Rising

Still work in the garden weeds are growing well, seeds are poking there heads up in the trays all is well.

Small Flowers Oct 2010-#4

Soft pastel on blue Mi-Teintes wrong side (10”x8”)

Oct 2010

More Dusting

Yep I have made my mind up I would rather painting than digging but I have told myself that it has to be done and I an a hard taskmaster on myself haha.

Small Flowers Oct 2010-#3
Soft Pastels on light blue grey Fabriano pastel paper (8"x 10")
Oct 2010

Got to love pastels

Still working hard digging the veggie patch, it so nice to take an hours brake and play with my soft pastels

Small Flowers Oct 2010-#2

Soft Pastels on light blue grey Fabriano pastel paper (8"x 10")

Oct 2010

Spring Dusting

Ok we have had a couple of nice spring days back to back and I have been working in the garden to get it ready for trying to grow stuff haha. But wile doing that I felt that I needed to do some painting but setting up all takes time and is boring so I decided to play with my soft pastels as there is a lot less setup and clean up involved with them which give me more time to paint or to dig in the garden.

Small Flowers Oct 2010-#1
Soft Pastels on light blue grey Fabriano pastel paper (10"x 8")
Oct 2010

Third Tuesday of the month

Yay it’s the third Tuesday of the month, its art group Tuesday. A group of like minded people travel to one of the group’s studio and talk, work and share ideas have a really great shared lunch and have a good time. To day the owner of the studio Alison gave a demo of felting making lovely bright coloured hats them got us all to have go.

It was so much fun and well worth the two hours travel each way so now I’m counting the Tuesdays till the next art group day

Felt painting

(14" x 17")

Feb 2010

Alison giving demo helping out doing it for ourselfs

And again

Ok i found the time again today to do another soft pastel painting, so I was thinking if Im going to try do these all month I might as well try some new paper and some different coloured papers to get the most out of the practise.
"Mist on water #1"

Soft Pastels on burgundy Fabriano pastel paper (8"x 10")

Feb 2010

another pastel for feb

Ok I made time to do another soft pastel painting today

seascape feb2010-#1

Soft Pastels on light blue grey Fabriano pastel paper (10"x 8")

Feb 2010

Dusting off the pastels

Well its a new month and as i have not use my soft pastels this year (haha) I thought I would Dust them off and give them ago. They say that repetition is habit forming so Im going to try and use them as much as possible this month, well the practice will be good for me anyway.

" I Wonder"

soft pastels on a Peach Mi-Teintes wrong side ( 8”x10”)

Feb 2010

Happy face

I have just finished this painting in time to get it ship down to Wellington for the end of term exhibition.

"Kenny"
Acrylics on canvas (20"x 24")

June 2009

Yellow Lillie

Well it’s Thursday again and I’m playing with my soft pastels again. This is a close crop of a yellow Lillie it is done in soft pastels on a terra cotta Mi-Teintes wrong side

"Yellow Lillie"

soft pastels on a terra cotta Mi-Teintes wrong side ( 8”x10”)

A new still life pastel

It was great to find the time to get out and play with my pastels again. This still life of fruit was done on a dark green colorfix board. I was going to blend but I like the thing that was happening with the dark background showing through the broken colour so I use no blending at all.

"Two red apples and pears"

Soft pastels on A4 Green colorfix board

The Dust did Fly

Just spent the weekend on a two day pastel workshop the tutor for the workshop was Lyn Diefenbach. She is a highly regarded and award winning pastel artist from Australia, and she Came to New Zealand to do a number of workshops, the main one being at the Pastel ConventionLyn is a great tutor, on the Saturday she explained the 4 thing that make up a painting plus the 10 thing you need to make a strong painting. Then she did a demo on sky’s and clouds. And then we had time to complete a painting for ourselves with her coming around and offering constructive help. Sunday Lyn started with a demo on waves and again we had time to complete a painting for ourselves. In the afternoon we had a talk and Lyn did another demo this time on trees

All in all it was a great weekend and a brilliant workshop

Here are the pastel paintings I did

Clouds soft pastels on Rose grey Colorfix board (7”x 16”)

Sea scape soft pastels on Rose grey Colorfix board (14”x 5”)

First Pastel Portrait from Life

Well it’s Thursday again and I’m playing with my soft pastels again. We had a model come in and sit for us today it’s a bit harder to work for life as you are very conscious of the time you have to work in, I must admit it was kinda fun

Soft pastel on chocolate Mi-Teintes wrong side A3

The year is on the move

Wow it April 1st, this year ha defiantly got a gallop on its just going so fast,Well today I got stuck in and finished the abstract painting I have been working on it is in the style of Ben Nicholson

Acrylics on canvas (16”x 20”)

March 2009

Practicing Portraits

Yesterday I decided to practice some portraits so got out my pastels a played and did the portrait of the young boy Vincent, and today I did the portrait of the young girl Victoria“Vincent”
Soft Pastels on light blue grey Fabriano pastel paper (8"x 10")

“Victoria”
Soft Pastels on light blue grey Fabriano pastel paper (8"x 10")

Would not dry haha

Just finished these two flow paintings the first one I tried I experimented with adding stuff to the paint to make it dry slower and flow freer you could say the I achieved my goal in as much that the acrylic paint did not dry for 4 weeks

“Reds, Green and Yellow on white”
Acrylics on canvas (16”x 20”)
March 2009
“Blue, Red, Yellow and white on Blue”
Acrylics on canvas (16”x 12”)
March 2009

Ugly Duckling Not

Thursday again goody time to play with the pastel again, I tried a different pastel paper too I think I will have to practice with it some more the pastel goes on it quite differently, so I will try it some more times before I make a decision one way or the other.

Soft Pastels on light blue grey Fabriano pastel paper (8"x 10")

Dog's Life

This is an acrylic painting i just finished it is of a golden Lab called Hannah it's from a photo ref for D/S

"Hannah the Lab"

Acrylics on canvas (16"x 20")

March 2009