Old Favorites

This is directed to the other artists who read my blog.  Did you ever have a favorite support that you used forever and thought was the best thing since sliced bread?

My favorite support was always velour and I rarely had a problem painting on it.  However, the paintings I've done recently have been on PastelMat or ColourFix Suede.  So I had this green velour and thought it would be perfect for the portrait of this older Golden Retriever.  It's been an uphill battle since I started and I just don't understand it!

I thought going back to a previously favorite support would be like riding a bicycle - after all, you never really forget how, do you?  Doesn't the old brain make pathways from repeated motions so those motions can be carried out quickly and easily in the future?  Of course, much of the problem has been getting the right colors. Even though the pastel is covering pretty well, the green background does affect the applied colors.  But the application has been difficult also - the pastels tend to drag and sort of skip on the surface and I can never remember that happening before.

Well, I'll quit complaining and just get back to it.  If it turns out lousy, I'll give it a try on PastelMat or ColourFix Suede!  Shoot, I may even switch media altogether and that would really stir up the old brain synapses, wouldn't it?

Foxy Final

I've finally finished the portrait of Foxy, the little Pomeranian.  I don't know if you all do this, but I tend to leave a painting out so I can see it for a few days after I think I've finished with it and will invariably "pick" at it as I walk by it.  I'm sure there's probably more I could find to pick at with this but I'm calling it finished so as not to overwork it.

However, I don't like a painting in the mail over a weekend so won't send this out until Monday so if you see anything that needs to be changed, don't hesitate to let me know!

Challenge Painting

This is a pastel painting that I did for the March Challenge at Paint My Photo, an online group where photographs are posted as references for artists to paint without worry about copyright issues.  It's not a "vanity" site where any art work is displayed but is a site where the photos are the stars and only art from the photos on that site is allowed to be posted. 

The challenge for March is to choose a photo reference from all those posted and paint it for an exchange between other participating members.  I've always had a fascination with the sea (could it be because I'm originally from landlocked Kansas?) and the red sails from the reference photo clinched it as far as choosing this for my challenge reference photo. 

I'm not normally a landscape/seascape painter so I hope I did a decent enough job with this that the recipient would not be too disappointed with its arrival.  A second reason for choosing this subject was that I wanted it to be pleasing to almost anyone, male or female.  Since we won't know where to send the paintings until the end of the month, I won't know who is to receive it.

It's pastel on Clairefontaine's PastelMat and this is the painting where the support had the little dots and one line where there wasn't any of the special pastel surface.  The bare spots were small and fortunately, there weren't all that many of them, but it's still a bit of a hassle to make sure they get covered.  Have any of you who use PastelMat had problems of this sort? 

I'm also nearly finished with Foxy but will wait until I'm completely finished to post. 

And, after I finish with Foxy, I have got to get back to organizing my studio!  No, it's still not finished because I keep procrastinating about getting it done.  Somebody crack the whip!

Just Squint - Pastel Landscape

Yeah, I'm still trying to make order out of the chaos that is my studio but I just couldn't go any longer without painting something!

I've recently been studying how to loosen up yet still keep a realistic (but painterly) look to my work.  The advice I see most often is to just squint.  Squinting supposedly helps you see the important and blurs out the unimportant. 

That's fine, I guess, but it's really, really hard to sustain a squint long enough to finish a whole painting! lol  Anyway, my first effort at just squinting!  I think this is one of those things that requires a lot of practice!

Pastel on sand colored Ampersand PastelBord, 5 x 7 inches, mostly Rembrandt sticks and various pastel pencils.

German Shepherd Dog Commission

This is the commission I was working on right after Christmas.  It was a gift that has now been given so I can post it.  I'm very relieved to say that both the person who commissioned the piece and the gift recipient were very pleased with the portrait. 

This painting is pastel on velour, my usual surface, with various pastels and pastel pencils and went fairly well,  As usual, the reference photos were not clear and did not show some parts of the dog they wanted painted.  The ruff under the neck was cut off and the eyes were "flashed" so I couldn't tell what color they were.  So, between the memory of the person who commissioned the painting and looking at similarly colored GSD's online, I made some educated guesses which were evidently close enough as the owner assured me that it looked just like the dog.

I was concerned that the fur was too long but both the commissioner and the owner told me that this dog was not at all smooth and that the fur length was right on.

So, on to the next commission which will be in gouache and I need to both finish the magnolia pastel painting and get the studio ready for the new cabinets.

Jeanne, from Jeanne Grant blogspot, left a comment about wanting to see the finished studio and I promise to post pictures.  The cabinets were supposed to be here by today but as far as I know, they haven't arrived yet.  After they do arrive, we'll have to install them (around my DH's work schedule) then I'll have to get everything tidied up to show everything at it's best - lol.  So, it might take a while but I'll eventually get pictures up here for you all to see!

Pastel - Blonde Cocker Spaniel

I've been working on this little Cocker Spaniel instead of doing stuff I should be doing!  But how could anyone resist that sweet face?

I'm still not finished with it but wanted to get feedback from the owner before I went much further and she was pleased with it so far.  She also gave permission to show the reference photo I used.  As you can see, there was some guesswork involved in painting the ears but I think I have them pretty close.

I still have some touching up to do and also need to finish the background but I'm in the "short rows" as they say down South!

This is various pastels (mostly Rembrandt) and pastel pencils on a 9x12 inch sheet of PastelMat.  It seemed that the tooth filled up fairly quickly this time and I had to vacuum off some of the pastel in order to make some changes.  I don't advise using a vacuum unless you have a lot of control or your vacuum doesn't have a lot of suction!  Most of the touching up I have to do comes from the vacuum cleaner leaving visible pathways on the painting!

So, I won't show this again as the basic painting is there - again, just some touch ups and a little blending here and there.

As always, if anyone sees anything that needs some attention, please don't hesitate to let me know!

CiCi - WIP in Pastel

All righty folks, step right up and be the witness to a first.  I'm attempting a portrait of our "new" little dog, CiCi, and those of you who have followed me for a while know I've never really done a portrait of one of our own pets.

I always wanted to, and I tried, but they just never looked right.  A dear friend suggested that I couldn't paint our own babies because I knew them in many different moods and many different positions and poses and one static painting just couldn't portray them in my own eyes.  She may be right, and if she is, perhaps that insight will allow me to finally paint one of our own.  Understanding is often the first step in breaking down certain barriers.

So, here goes!  It's pastel on a dark gray Ampersand PastelBord, 8x10 size which is still almost larger than life-size for her!  Right now I'm just laying in some under colors.  I asked my husband if he wanted me to paint her with her tongue in her mouth but we both agreed that it would not be her without her tongue hanging out.  Also, most of the time her tongue just sticks out a little bit but when her head is tilted in that cute way, it does fall out further and we decided to go with that even though she may look slightly demented to other people. lol 

For those of you who don't know her story and the reason why her tongue sticks out, here is the reason why.  We got her from a rescue agency back in May of this year.  They told us that she was probably a purebred Maltese used for breeding, about 4 or 5 years old.  She had been found running down a very busy highway outside of Raleigh, NC.  They said she was dirty, her hair matted, her nails grown into the pads of her paws and her teeth so rotten and infected that they all had to be pulled.

Without teeth, a dog can't keep it's tongue in its mouth very well and that's the reason CiCi's tongue hangs out much of the time.  We don't care about that - she's really sweet and not a yappy little ankle-biter like many small dogs.  She eats soft dog foods but can actually eat just about anything a regular dog can eat if she has enough time to really gum it!  lol  Seriously, she really fits our household well and even if she does look funny with her tongue hanging out, we still love her and besides, just think of all the money we save on teeth cleaning!

But back to the portrait at hand.  There's still a lot to be done and my time is pretty limited right now so I'm posting this wip in hopes you all will hold me accountable.  It's actually going fairly quickly and I hope I'll remember to get photos of the progress.  Sometimes I just get to painting and it's finished before I remember to scan or photograph!

As always, if you see anything that needs adjusting, please let me know!

Japanese Chin Pastel Painting - Updated

I'm getting in the short rows with Livie, a pastel painting of a Japanese Chin (I think they're also called a Japanese Spaniel).  The picture was taken with my digital camera since my scanner won't work with this computer now.  Grrrrrr!  Many people prefer to photograph their art but I've always gotten better pictures from a scanner.  Perhaps it's just the way I take the photos or something - I do know that we haven't had suitable weather for photography here lately and the lack of good light may be much of the reason for the poor photos.

Whatever the reason, just look at the progress and not the quality of the photograph posted!  lol

Actually, the painting is all but done.  I have a few details to add such as some feathery strokes to the fur in places and as soon as I get approval from the commissioner, I'll start the final varnishing. 

Let me know if you see anything amiss.

Fabriano Tiziano

If you've been reading my blog for the past few weeks, you might remember a post about some Fabriano Tiziano paper I bought on sale.

Well, I'm not one to let any art supply go to waste if I can help it, so I ended up applying a coat of Colour-Fix Primer to one of the sheets and it actually worked! The paper did buckle a little but a quick mist of water on the back then overnight under a pile of books solved that little problem easily.

I bought the CF Primer on a trip to Jerry's ArtaRama quite a while ago and have never used it. OK, I was chicken to try it as I'd heard it could end up streaky and uneven but I didn't feel I had anything to lose with the Tiziano paper. Actually, it went on very easily and while there was some streakiness, it wasn't all that noticeable after applying the pastel. It shows up slightly when the painting is scanned but a scanner will sometimes pick up every grain of sand anyway.

The painting above was done for an OSWOA exchange and I was very pleased with the way it came out especially since it proves that I don't have to let this paper languish in my paper drawer!

WIP - Lab Final

I had contacted Belle's owner yesterday and she preferred the red background so that's what I did. I finished it up today and emailed a copy to the owner who approved it wholeheartedly. I just returned from putting it into the mail.

Whew! I was sweating it as it seemed like pulling (my own!) teeth to get this halfway the way I wanted it. However, Belle's "mom" said it looked just like her and she was so excited to know that I mailed it today. Hope she's just as excited when she receives it!

I didn't have anything but a very bright red for the background so I ground up some red, some green and a little blue and mixed them together to come up with a color that the owner wanted. I have this photo cropped but the background is vignetted. The mat will cover everything but the red color though so this is pretty much the way the dog will look after it's framed.

Oh, I did tweak the eyes and nose just a little more before I mailed it but didn't make another copy - they were slight adjustments.

Now, on to my next commission - another dog. This time it's a pure white toy dog and I have some ideas for it but nothing has quite jelled yet. This is the commission that isn't due until November and where I'm given free rein to paint it the way I want to! How cool is that?

Also will be working on an OSWOA for an exchange in an art forum I belong to. We just had an exchange and it was so successful, we decided to plan for another one. I'll show the OSWOA I did for the last exchange in tomorrow's post but will have to keep the new one a secret!

Shhhhh, don't tell but I think it's going to be a flower!

Memorial Portrait W.I.P.

"Sadie"
pastel on velour
copyright
Jan Gibson

This is a portrait I started a few days ago and I figured I ought to post a wip (work in progress) while I was at it since I haven't posted here in a while. So far it's going well but all I'm doing right now is laying down the base colors and I don't know how long it will take to finish. I'm trying to work all over the portrait to make sure to get the shading/tones right as a whole instead of working a section at a time.

The light has been awful since we've had rain for what seems forever here! It's not been so much rain as it's been drizzly and overcast and really kind of depressing!

I'm kind of excited as next week a friend and I may go to Raleigh to Jerry's Artarama (retail store) and that should be a really fun trip. It's not that I need any art supplies but just getting to go look is a real treat. So much of the time, I mail order my supplies and don't know exactly what I'm getting until it arrives. I even mail order from Jerry's as the store doesn't carry all of what they have in their catalog. But, even being fairly well-stocked right now, I'll bet I'll find something I just have to have. What do you think? lol

'Tis The Season!

Skunk
Pastel on Paper
copyright
Jan Gibson

As you can see, I wasn't referring to the Christmas season in the title of today's blog! The foxes haven't been seen for some time but the skunks have been fairly active for a month or more. Fortunately, we haven't seen any here on our farm but lingering odors are proof positive that they're definitely around somewhere.

This painting was sort of an experiment as I received some new FC Pitt pastel pencils in a recent art supply order. Almost everyone in a pet portrait forum I belong to said they used these pencils pretty much exclusively for their animal portraits. Also, Colin Bradley, a famous pastel pencil artist uses the Pitt pastel pencils almost exlusively so I thought I'd try them. I ordered them from open stock to replace some of the CarbOthello pencils I was getting low on and I must say that the colors are really nice. But, I'm not all that crazy about the way the pencils lay down the color. They aren't as smooth as the CarbOthellos but not as scratchy as the Derwents. I think they'll do fine to fill in for the colors I lack but I don't think I'd invest in a complete set of them.

Right now, I have a complete set of the CarbOthellos, a few Derwents, many of the earth tones of the Pitts and a few of the Conte' pencils. The next time I need to restock, I may buy more of the Conte's if they're still made the way mine are made. I had purchased a few of the Conte's from open stock probably 30 years ago or more but never used them much as they were hard to sharpen. When I started working more in pastel pencils, I dug them out and started using them again.

So, my preference in pastel pencil brands are ranked as follows.

1. CarbOthellos by Stabilo

2. Conte'

3. Pitt by Faber Castell

4. Derwent

I admit that I haven't tried every pencil brand in every color and I know that there's a difference between pencils even within brands so the above ranking is based on the colors used mainly for animal paintings.

I haven't tried any other pastel pencils but I think these are the top-rated for lightfastness and I only want to use lightfast, archival materials anyway so may not experiment any further.

I know that I really, really dislike using paper now that I've worked on sanded supports. I guess my favorite support is Ampersand's PastelBord and Hahnemuhle's Velour Paper is second favorite, with ColourFix by ArtSpectrum being ok to use. I'd like to try the Uart and other sanded papers and will eventually order a sampler from Dakota Pastels or something. I'd also like to try the Clairefontaine Pastelmat but I don't think it's distributed in the US at this time.

I guess I'm an art supply junkie but I'm finding out what I really like to use and what I don't like and won't buy again. That's important to me.

I think the best advice I've ever been given is to use what works for me. Unfortunately, that usually means the most expensive products!