Foxy - WIP 2

I've done a little more to the portrait of Foxy, the Pomeranian, which I've posted above.  Most of the additional work has been in the way of adding layers and doing a little bit of refining.  I should have it finished in the next day or so.

Again, this is soft pastel on ColourFix Suede and I'm enjoying this new paper.  I really think my favorite paper is still velour or real suede paper/matboard but this is nice and, to me, is superior to PastelMat.

Both papers (ColourFix Suede and PastelMat) seem to both feel and respond the same way but I like the colors better in the ColourFix plus, there don't seem to be any flaws in the paper as there are in the PastelMat.  I just finished a painting using the PastelMat and had a little trouble covering some bare dots and also one bare line where there wasn't any surface.  It worked out ok but it's just a lot easier when there aren't any flaws.

I'll post the painting I painted on the PastelMat tomorrow and perhaps another update on little Foxy!

Foxy - WIP

This is Foxy, a cute little Pomeranian I'm in the midst of painting.  I have two nieces with Spinal Muscular Atrophy, a genetic disease and I donated a gift certificate for a portrait to a fund raiser to help find a cure.

The lady who won the portrait sent me photos of this little cutie and so far the painting is going very well.  I had initially planned to paint her in gouache or acrylic ink but my fingers instinctively reached for the pastels.

This is just the beginning of laying down of the base colors and I have a lot of refining to do.

I'm using the new ColourFix Suede in the Kangaroo color.  It looks pretty gray here and in the color swatches online but it has a bluish tint to it.  The owner of Foxy said she wanted a steel blue as a background color and this seemed fairly close to that color.  This is only the second time I've used this support (& I still haven't finished the first piece!) and I like it ok.  It's similar to PastelMat by Clairefontaine but doesn't seem to have the flaws I've noticed in the PastelMat.  It seems to work the same as the PastelMat in that blending is pretty difficult until the layers are built up. 

Oh, as an aside, the pipe insulation blenders I wrote about in a previous post don't seem to work well after the initial layers and tend to remove the pastel instead of blending it.  I may just need more practice with them and the paper though.  Much as I dislike the feel of the pastel dust, the fingers are certainly the best blenders for nearly every pastel painting situation I've come across yet!

Anyway, I hope to be  able to finish this by the first of next week at the latest. 

Another Pastel Blender

Many of you know that while pastel is my medium of choice, I really hate the feel of the dust on my hands.  That's why I'm always on the look out for the perfect blender.

A while ago I touted the virtues of the Loew-Cornell Style Styx and I still like them a lot.  But I recently read on Wet Canvas's Pastel Forum about using foam pipe insulation as a blending tool.  I didn't have any on hand and didn't want to drive 30 miles to a home improvement store so I looked around at what I did have on hand.

I found some dense foam lengths that are actually used in swimming pools as floats or kid's toys and decided to try a section to see how it worked.  It's amazing how well they do work!  You can cut the foam into any shape but I found the wedge shape works the best.

The foam sections that I had were purchased from a local Dollar store for a dollar or less each and one length is more than enough from which to cut dozens of the little blenders.  These wedges hold up well and while, like the Style Styx, they may stain, they can be wiped off and used repeatedly.  Or, they're cheap enough to have one for every color in your pastel collection!

Happy, happy painting!

Winter, Spring, Winter

It's that time of the year again when the temperatures do their wild fluctuations!  For the past several days, we've had temps in the high 70's to low 80's - pure heaven after the cold we've had.  But we had a front move through yesterday that has brought back the cooler temps.  It's not all that cold but still nearly 30 degrees cooler than what it has been.

The daffodils and forsythia are blooming and I spotted a crocus nearly open yesterday.  These plants seem able to take the weather see-saw although a hard freeze would probably ruin the blooms.

Little teasers of spring right now then back to winter.

Another sign of the season is that there are a lot of skunks out and many are being hit on the highways.  Since we're in the country, many are hit on the road on which we live.  That makes for such a delightful perfume for several days!

But, the skunks and the early flowers signal that spring really isn't that far away.  Here's hoping it's early this year!

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.

Information on the Muffaletta Sandwich

Since the comments I had on the post about Muffalettas were about not knowing what the sandwich was, I decided I'd better post a link to some information about it.

Wikipedia seems to have some pretty good information on the sandwich all in one place. This entry includes the ingredients and the origins of the sandwich although it doesn't give an actual recipe.

The muffalettas I had in the New Orleans area (I actually lived in Mississippi but the sandwiches were popular there also) were on a thick bread the size of a dinner plate and filled with Italian ham, cheese, & salami as well as the Italian Olive Salad.

The center of the bread was scooped out to make room for the other ingredients and that's why I was taken with the recipe from Rachel Ray.  Instead of the thick bread of which much was thrown away, she used pizza crusts.  Italian bread and pizza crust are made from the same ingredients in the same way but just take different forms.  The taste was the same - crusty on the outside with those toasted sesame seeds - with the rest of the ingredients well-contained so no olive oil dripping on your clothes or bits of olive salad falling on your lap!

If you ever go to New Orleans and you're a meat eater who likes olives, be sure to order a muffaletta!  Like the Cafe du Monde's coffee and beignets, the muffaletta is another New Orleans institution!

Back Again

I don't have any photos yet because I just finished moving all the computer stuff to the new work area and everything is such a mess that I can't get back far enough to get a decent shot!

We have a couple of desks and a table to move out that are currently in the way of everything!  I also have to move my huge work table and the paper cabinet that our friends gave me for Christmas. 

Still so much more to do but I'm just blessed that all the computer stuff is moved and set up and actually working!  lol  And, in this so-called wireless society, I've found that everything (that I have at least) still needs electricity so still have a lot of wires to deal with. 

So, I'll still be working on the studio for a while yet.  My DH still has to put the trim around the base of the cabinets and we still need some pulls or knobs of some kind. 

I'm thinking wrought iron as I saw some in the home improvement store that I really liked and they were very reasonable to boot.  I like the look and texture of wrought iron and I think those pulls would look good with the black countertop.  I've not seen any I like better so will probably go get those this weekend.

Things are slowly coming together!