Portrait of a zombie

Being inspired by my daughter's special effects make-up, Autumn Eliza SFX, I decided to do a portrait of one of her "zombies". This particular zombie is one she designed for a Halloween costume segment on Good Day Sacramento.
The coloring on the skin was pretty simple since there is no wrong color, but I just used up previous washes of blue and green from my landscape palette to get a creepy pale color.
Happy Halloween!

Pencil sketch - coastal fog

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  Here is a pencil sketch inspired by a watercolor demo by Howard Luke Lucas...the fog coming in on a coastal canyon. Interpreting his watercolor with pencil was an interesting experiment. As he is putting down washes, I'm quickly trying to cross hatch or smudge the same areas in pencil. My drawing is a mirror image since we saw the demo through an overhead mirror. I will try to recreate this later in watercolor too.
  
  
  
  

Experimenting with pan pastels

It has been a while since I have posted a blog, but life gets busy! Being inspired to try something new by my Artist's Way group, I experimented with a new medium, pan pastels...basically pastel powder packed into a container. It is applied with sponge applicators, and I also used makeup wedges. It is challenging to get any sharp lines, but it works great for blending. I was using some scrap paper, so it wasn't a very heavy weight.

 

 I started with a basic landscape, adding layers of color, but I should have combined it with some pastel sticks to incorporate some detail. Even with the smaller sponge applicators, I just couldn't get a sharp line.

 This piece actually started as my "sponge cleaning" paper, just to get some of the extra pastel off the sponge, but then I started creating something out of it, using a big pink eraser, which picked up the pastel quite well.

Overall it was fun to play with these pan pastels, and I could see using them in a mixed media application.

Tree on the edge of a field

Another beautiful day for outdoor painting in Georgia. I took advantage of some quiet time while 2 of the grandkids are at school and the other one is napping.  
I got so caught up in creating the background, and then most of it ends up covered by the tree in the foreground. I might go and paint just the field tomorrow.
I liked the detail of the gourd birdhouse hanging from the tree. It was actually hanging on the other side of the tree, but when I moved it to the left, I put the shadow on the wrong side of the gourd!

Plein air watercolor barn in Georgia

Another day plein air painting in Georgia. The barn was just begging to be painted. The clouds were kind or threatening to storm, as they have been every afternoon this week, so I got to finish most of the painting outside, but then had to finish it up inside.

I debated whether to but the lines on the barn to show the wood planking. The barn looked a little flat without it, but a little busy with them...

Stand of pine trees, Plein air watercolor

While on vacation to visit the grand kids in Georgia, it's challenging to find time to paint. Sneaking off to the edge of the property, I found a stand of pine trees to paint. It only lasted a short while before my 4 year old granddaughter found me and wanted to paint, too. With a little help, I got her set up with some paint brushes and paper to paint with me. She had to share my palette though, so that made things a little tougher. This piece still needs a little more detail work, but I figure I can do that later when I have more time and less distractions.

Portrait practice at Patris' Studio

It seems like it's been awhile since I went to Patris' studio for the 2nd Saturday long pose.  Drawing people really takes continuous practice. My first piece of just the head went pretty quick so I decided to do a quick full body piece as well.
On the first painting, I'm not sure what happened with her face...I aged her about 20 years! I was working on 140 # paper with I realized it is quite forgiving, whether lifting color or just moving it around. Reworking an area is much easier.

On my second painting, I started with just a quick sketch, and then focused on the fabrics more. I worked on the face last, but realized that the head wasn't quite the right shape. I was working with  a pad of 90 # paper on this one, and color saturates into the paper much quicker and any reworking that I did made the paper start falling apart.