"Value does the work..."

Last week I attended a workshop in pastel painting.  We spent three days working on VALUE, VALUE, VALUE - value BEFORE color.  "Value does the work, color gets the glory."

Now, don't get me wrong, we played a lot with color, too.  LOTS of color.

I love learning and having fun at the same time.  We watched some good demonstrations - and one that didn't turn out as planned.  That was also a good experience.  Most of the workshop leaders that I have been with, paint their demos and NEVER tell you that it isn't working. Ray Ewing, our instructor, was very up front about his painting not working - and... it was OK...what a great lesson for us all!  Thanks, Ray.

I ended up with two paintings.  Each had an underpainting done with pastel.  The initial darks are put in and then gone over with water to seal in the color. Then the color fun really begins.  It's such fun to see how much color can be put into a dark - as long as the value is the same, just about any color works!

This is the underpainting for Looking down at Nelson Pond.

Here is the finished painting.  It's a little hard to see in this image, but that tree on the left is purple, red, blue, green...

This underpainting has a red sky.  I was really working on getting in those dark values!

I have reworked the sky a couple of times on this one.  It originally had dark, foreboding clouds.

  I then tried it 'happy' it up.  I also put a slight curve in the road - which I like.

Not sure I like the cheery version as well.  I may go back to the ominous look.  Any comments?

Winnie's Butterfly

Winnie and her sisters had come for a summer visit and were getting ready to go home.  As they were packing the car, we realized that we had not picked any flowers while they were visiting.  My zinnia bed was overflowing with color, so I got out the clippers and we all got to work.

Now these are 'city girls.'  (They are not in to bugs and dirt - I have suggested to their mother that a camping trip might be in order one of these days.)

The butterflies were everywhere. Winnie was cutting her flowers and a lovely butterfly landed on her shoulder.  She was not too sure that she liked that, but her sisters convinced her to stand still (quietly) and her mother snapped the picture.  It turned out to be a happy event and soon they climbed into the car with hands full of zinnia color.

I began this painting with a watercolor underpainting.

Here it is - finished up with pastel.  I left most of the background for the soft watercolor effect.

Graeme's Shell

It has suddenly turned cold and I am trying to hold on to summer - just a little longer. I am hoping that this painting will continue that summer/beach feeling.

Last spring when we were on vacation with some of the grandchildren, there was considerable energy around daily shell collecting.  I had asked the grandchildren to collect lots of tiny shells for me for "The Box" (see May 1, 2011 post).  Well, they also came back with some ginormous ones. They were bigger than our hands! We didn't know what kind of shells they were, but they had wonderful color and interesting barnacles on them. We just couldn't being them all back home so Graeme asked if I would paint this one for her.

I delivered the original painting to her this past week.  Happy Birthday, Graeme.