New Award, New Painting

"Egret"

Pastel on PastelMat
copyright
Jan Gibson

First of all, I'd like to thank Vic, from Art With A Pencil, for the lovely award. Since I've recently received the award from another artist, you already know seven things about me and seven other artists have received the award from me so I won't repeat them. I do so appreciate the recognition from my peers though. Thanks so much, Vic!

Except for the portrait of Benjamin Capone, I hadn't been painting much up until a few days ago. Then, suddenly, it seems I couldn't get paper and paints in hand quickly enough! lol.

My husband and I went to Hobby Lobby over the weekend and there was some Fabriano Tiziano paper on sale that he insisted I buy. It really was a great deal and I'd never used it before but, it was a pad of colors that I never use so I wasn't going to buy it until he insisted.

So, of course, I had to come home and try it out. What a mistake! I'd picked a sheet of orange (the colors ranged from pale yellow to deep orange) and attempted to paint a bluebird from one of my own photo references. I could not get the paper covered with pastel. No matter what I did, including repeated sprays of fixative and added layers of pastel, that orange kept showing through the painting. What a bummer as I think I did a pretty credible job with the actual painting for a change! Live and learn! That paper doesn't layer well at all for pastel pencils!

Then, yesterday, I got brave enough to try the PastelMat that another artist (Nancy, Reflections From Life Blogspot) and I went in together and ordered from England. I'd heard about how great this paper is and I really wanted to try it but it's not available here in the US at this time.

At first, I didn't like the PastelMat much at all. Since I'd been hearing for months about how great it was, I was extremely disappointed. But, I perservered and eventually found the best way for me to paint on it. It seems to be a matter of filling the tooth to a point where blending is possible. Anyway, the egret above took me most of yesterday (working in bits and pieces of time) to complete but I'm fairly pleased with it as a first effort. The size is 4"X6" or OSWOA sized. Of course, this didn't take much pastel but it did make blending and getting into small areas a real effort!

So, do I like the PastelMat after trying it? A sort of qualified yes. It seems to almost be a mixture of my three favorite supports - PastelBord, ColourFix and Velour - which should make for a super favorite, right? Well, it may become my all time favorite after I've had time to work with it, but for right now, I think PastelBord is still my top choice. Besides, I don't want to get too attached to using it since it's so hard (not to mention, expensive!) to get!

Memorial W.I.P. - Update

"Sadie"
pastel on velour
copyright
Jan Gibson

I've only done a small amount more to the portrait of Sadie but it's beginning to take shape. Still working on the darks which are the basis for the pale topcoat. Sadie was definitely a beautiful champagne blonde!

Well, I think my OH may have peeked into my blog and the secret is out that I wanted to go to Jerry's ArtaRama! So, I'll just tell you (& probably him too, lol!) that a friend and I did go today. Gosh, I'll bet we spent over an hour wandering up and down the aisles looking at the all the art supplies! I was very good and only bought a couple of pieces of Ampersand PastelBord and some ColourFix primer for making my own boards. I'm told ColourFix can be sanded so it's not quite so rough when you prime it yourself. The primer wasn't outrageously expensive so it's worth a try.

I think I did very well driving in Raleigh. I freely admit to being a real country bumpkin when it comes to driving in big cities but at least I knew pretty much where we were going and how to get there and we made it just fine. But my friend wanted to stop by JoAnne's craft store on the way home and we did get lost leaving that shopping center! However, it was just a few blocks out of our way and we ended up where we needed to go without getting creamed!

I'm soooo glad we live in the boonies! It may take an hours drive to get anywhere with any shopping or amenities at all but mail order works just fine in my book! Shopping convenience just isn't worth the frustration and stop and go wear and tear on my car!

Lion On Alert

"On Alert"
Pastel on ColourFix
copyright
Jan Gibson

I think I must have cats on the brain or something as this is the second lion I've done and I've been eyeing a couple of cat reference photos too! I started this lion soon after I finished the first one located HERE. By the way, I ended up with a title of "Intense Pride" for that lion at the insistence of Martina who felt the word "pride" should be in the title somewhere!

Anyway, I put a first wash onto the Zoey painting and decided to finish this while the wash was drying. Most of the time I like to work something from start to finish as I sometimes get sidetracked but since this lion was nearly finished, I decided to go ahead and finish it.

It's on a 9x12 inch, dark blue ColourFix sheet and I'm not sure I like ColourFix for pastels. It ends up being very messy plus, I think I've worn the fingerprint off my index finger trying to blend it! I like ColourFix for colored pencil but it really makes a mess with pastels. I still think my favorite pastel support is the Ampersand PastelBord. It just seems to have the right amount of grittiness to hold the pastel without being overly abrasive.

I think I'll buy stock in Ampersand as I like it for just about every media I use!