Gold Head Branch

This is another one of my small paintings, again just a 6x9, done on Art Spectrum Colourfix with NuPastels. Again I spent a little less than 30 minutes on it. I'm enjoying working in this small size in smaller amounts of time, as it's less daunting to find the time in my schedule to do it.

This is taken from a photo of my that I took at Gold Head Branch State Park early one morning, when I went out there to do some bird watching. I was completely smitten by the *intense* orange of the landscape that the angle of the sun gave everything. The light was so beautiful I just had to take some photos. I enjoyed doing this in small format which I'm finding really so much fun.

In many of my art classes and workshops I was constantly urged to work "Bigger! bigger!" I've been told that "big art" is what sells. But I feel that surely there must be a place in the world for smaller pieces as well. Surely I'm not the only person who lives in a small house and has no wall space for anything but small intimate works of art? I've seen "big art" pieces that I love and that are very striking, but since:
1) I have no possible wall space for anything like that, and
2) "Big art" is generally priced way beyond my means
I just look and pass them by. But I *have* bought a few small pieces of original art done by friends - size and price just right.

So for the time being I'll continue to work small. 

Jean's Lemons (two)

I'm still trying to keep up with the "work small, work often" philosophy of the book Daily Painting by Carol Marine. It's helping me get a little bit more into the groove to do small paintings I need spend only 20-30 minutes on, not a daunting amount of time!

I do wish I could get better photos - the purple under the lemons is not so intense in real life, maybe I'll try again tomorrow in better lighting and redo this whole post with a new photo. But this was done last night in about 20 minutes, again a 6x9 but done on Art Spectrum Colourfix paper, primarily NuPastels. I do enjoy working small, it's rather fun, and you can whip something out quite quickly. 

My Back Yard

I'm still trying to get into the groove of working small and working more often, as I seem to keep finding things that keep me away from the easel. If I only need 30 minutes for a small painting I'm likely to do it more often!

So that's what I did today - 30 minutes sitting in my sunroom and looking out over my back yard and pond. This was again done on a small 6x9 piece of Wallis paper that I had sitting around, NuPastels. A size like 6x9 means I can spend a mere 30 minutes or so and actually get something done. Not that I'm very crazy about this painting, but at least I did something! Trying to get back into the groove. I started losing the light since I started latish, so had to stop. Will have to see if I think I can salvage it tomorrow perhaps.

Jean's lemons again

Okay, I made a few minor changes on this one because there were a couple niggly little things that bothered me, but not too much. I rather liked it as it was except for the tiny nits, and I didn't want to get too overworked or too bogged down in any sort of details. I wanted it to stay loose. So I'm considering this one "done" though a shame the colors don't photograph as nicely as I would like.

Jean's Lemons (one)

I have been away from my easel for FAR too long - so much of the rest of life seems to constantly get in the way, but today I decided that had to stop. I didn't have my grandson for the afternoon as I usually do on Fridays, so the whole afternoon was suddenly empty. As it was I still frittered most of it away and only spent 30 minutes on this painting, but at least I DID it! This is still rough and probably not done, just in the "let's wait a bit and then take a look stage". But I did it! I sat down at my easel.

I have a lot of people to thank whose various efforts led me to this afternoon:

1) Marie Marfia - who donated the book "Daily Painting" by Carol Marine to the First Coast Pastel Society lending library.
2) Kay Deuben - our FCPS librarian, who let me be the first person to check the book out.
3) Lyn Asselta pastel painter, who gave us such a wonderful mini-workshop last Saturday at our FCPS meeting - all about using a limited palette with complementary colors.
4) and Jean Rolke, who gave me the lemons that served as my models!

I chose a limited complementary palette using blue/purple and yellow/orange. Just a handful of pastels, mostly all Nupastels, on a small 6x9 sheet of Wallis paper that I happened to have. I include a few shots I took of the process along the way, demonstrating that my paintings always look "ugly" for the longest time before they finally begin to come together at some point along the line. grin emoticon Happy painting everyone. I need to set aside time to do this MUCH MORE OFTEN NOW.

 Ugly stage 1

 Ugly stage 2

Ugly stage 3