Ride n Paint!

Today was a warm, calm day.  Such a treat!  I took Casey to Washoe Lake for a gentle ride (he is a little pudgy from the winter off) and let him hang out in the newly installed pipe corals.  This equestrian park is so nice!  Lots of groups come here for endurance races or just group rides.  They have been making upgrades to the picnic area with new fire pits and barbeques. 

I sat in the picnic area and did a little pastel field study of Slide Mountain.  That patch of blue is Washoe Lake peeking out between the sand dunes.  Just a little one-hour sketch (on that paper I still don't like) on a nice relaxing day.

Looking forward to spring!

9 x 12 watercolor, watercolor pencil, traditional colored pencil

(this is a little lavender farm near my home)

Up here in the high desert, lavender blooms early July.  But isn't amazing that we even have it here?  I think so.  I always think of mediterranean or Southern France when people talk of lavender fields. 

All that snow melted in our Truckee Meadows, and today we sat outside on our patio (the umbrellas are still in storage) and began to perspire in the hot sun!  We watched as the daffodil buds started to turn from green to yellow!  I think that if I look out the window in one hour, they may have popped out of their bud covers.

It is snowing again and I want to paint spring flowers!

9 x 12 pastel over watercolor underpainting

on white Canson paper

Last spring my spinning and weaving guild met at a member's log cabin in the high Sierras.  This was the view from her cabin!  They had planted all these beautiful blue, pink and white wildflowers on the slope, and this is the neighbor's barn in the background.  What a beautiful spot!

My good friend Ida told me that Canson holds up to watercolor underpainting.  So, I gave it a try here.  It didn't buckle too much, but it was a little bumpy to pastel on (I'm too lazy to stretch the paper like Ida does!).  Anyway, it passed my test.  I am also doing the same test painting on Strathmore Pastel Paper, but it is still in the works. 

Goodness - the snow is piling up outside! 

Creating art while babysitting...

9 x 12 "Barrel Cactus

watercolor, watercolor pencils, traditional color pencils

While Baby Whit naps or plays in his gym, I worked in my sketchbook.  First I did watercolor.  Then I lifted out the white needles with a damp brush and then blotted with paper towel.  Then I used a waxy white pencil to protect the white of the needles.  Then I used watersoluable colored pencils.  In some areas I blended with water, in areas of texture I left dry.

Here's Baby Whit!



"The Passage" pastel painting

14 x 11 pastel on board

Happy Dance!  This came out pretty much the way I wanted it to!

Letting the underpainting guide me

Third stage

I decided to try again at the granite rock scene, but on a PastelBord with a watercolor underpainting.  I tried a new thing to control the "out of control" spreading and bleeding of the watery paint on this clay board and I think it worked.

First I wet the board with a wide brush.  Then I used a cheap squirrel brush (from a children's paint box) and brushed watercolor with a lot of pigment on to depict the sky, tree area and rock area.  Before the colors spread out, I used a hairdryer on warm, slow setting.  As the paint dried, while still holding the hairdryer, I dipped the children's brush in water and dabbed the excess out, and then brushed in strokes for the trees and textures in the rocks.  This left some neat looking ghost shapes.  Some areas needed more dark (like the rock crevaces) and I drybushed these in.

Here are the first two stages:

watercolor only

first applications of pastel



Since I did this scene already, I am not following the photo this time.  Instead, I'm letting the underpainting guide me where the rocks and crevaces are.  This is actually more fun than the other way!

Practising on the paper I love to hate!

12 x 9 pastel "Granite Study"

I will be taking a workshop this summer from an artist who does fantastic alpine landscapes on this paper.  So, not only am I practising granite rock studies, but I am practising on this Canson paper.  Grrr!  I can see I need more practise!