The Cottage

12x9 Pastel on black, bumpy Canson

     Another painting this week, I'm plugging right along. I seem to be attracted to high key paintings lately and using black as the support that only makes them...louder. :) I had fun with it though.

     This is another Priesing painting from West Virgina. My brother-in-laws cabin, it faces a small river that floods at bit, so its back from it a bit. Yep that's the outdoor shower..the only shower and they conveniently left gaps in the boards. Hee he, To give us all a thrill I'm told. A few artistic changes from real life. The tree swing would have been off to the left and not seen, and another smaller tree would be right in the middle of the cottage blocking it.

Church on a Hill

Pastel 12x9 Black Pastel Paper

    Another painting from West Virgina, just around the corner from family.  A beautiful day. 

Up RIver

Up River

12"x16" on Colorfix paper.

      I just finished working on another painting from my summer vacation in WV. This is looking up stream past the local swimming hole. On those 100+ days, a natural spring right in the middle was a wonderful surprise. Floating seats and a drink just added the right touch to a hot day.

Levi in the field

11"x14" Pastel

After a lot of summer vacation visiting family, I finally started finishing some paintings. This began as a Plein Aire at my brother-in-laws fields, then brought home to finish in studio. I'm a bit rusty. :) I had a lot of fun and even got up on a horse...after 25 years...ouch!

Flowers in motion

16x12" Pastel on Colorfix paper

    I have finally finished this painting that I started last week. Similar to the last few that I have posted. This one has a different look to it as the support paper is a rough bumpy watercolor paper that was primed with colorfix pastel primer. I had to do a few underpaintings. One with watercolor, and then another with a harder pastel and sprayed with alcohol and left to dry. The bumps made it so I had to underpaint, as the dry pastel would skim over the tops of the bumps and leave a larger amount of background paper than I wished to show.

This one has a darker feel to it, because of the amount of greens in it and less sky.

Stormy Dunes

Stormy Dunes 9x12" Pastel on colorfix paper

     This is painting done off the small sketch study that I did recently. The sky was given some colors and the bushes turned into grass clumps. I enjoyed painting this one and spent some time trying to get the shallow water/beach edge to read right. Footprints were added for some interest up close.

     After painting this one I think that I will paint another in a larger format, perhaps I will be daring and go for 16x20".

Thanks for looking as always.

afternoon at the sea

5x7 Pastel on colorfix paper

Another ocean sketch, this one not so much about the water. I think that I will paint another of this larger and get more detailed variations in the sands, and work out some different placement of the grass clumps on the left side. This photo doesn't show the difference on highlights on the left dunes.
thanks for looking :)

The Rocky Shore

Pastel 5x7" on Black Canson Paper

Finally another painting.

I'm working hard on getting ocean water and my rocks to look as I intend them too. This one sat unfinished on my painting easil for a week while my computer was rebuilt. All my reference photos are of course....on my computer. This painting I decided to have the sunlight at a low point to the side. I was trying to get more colors into a very boring ref. photo to liven it up. I am scouring all my ocean photos for the next attempt.

Waves

Waves 5x7" on black Canson paper

This is an attempt at painting waves and surf. I never thought that it would be so hard...but it is for me. About 2 hours, with little stabs of inspiration there after. I'm going to call it a day now though.

Finally got onto my computer, its been having alot of problems lately. Its going to get rebuilt tonight hopefully.

3 little landscapes

These are a few 5x7 landscapes that I have done while the power was out over the weekend.  It is interesting and difficult, to get much detail into such a small painting.  I can't imagine doing it any smaller.

                  7x5      pastel    mat board with Colorfix primer      

A scene from Dry River Campground. We spend alot of time swimming in this River. Even though its named Dry River,  it is not dry. 

 

 5x7  Matboard with colorfix primer  Pastel

This is in Londonderry NH, lots of farms here.  It was a road but I shrunk it into a path.

  7x5  Pastel on matboard with colorfix primer

From a Reference photo on wetcanvas website.

Two more paintings

    

      Another two from this weekend. I didn't have enough time to take photos and post as my mom, dad and aunt came up for a visit.

 

This one is of Connor, Cassies brother.  It was suppose to be an hour, but ended up double that because I was having so much trouble with his face.  It was too flat looking, and I was having trouble with the shadowing and having stripes at the same time.

   

Connor

Canson smooth side 9x12 pastel

Vermont Field

 9x12 Canson smooth side pastel

 This is from a hiking trip this past summer in Vermont.  I drove Russ my husband and daughter crazy because I kept stopping to take photos.  Its suppose to have Queen Annes Lace flowers in the forground that I didn't get time to in for the  1 hour sketch limit.  I can't decide if I should continue or not.

Icy Barn

 

11x14

Pastel

colorfixed primed matboard

 A different painting while I try to decide what to put into the House on the Hill painting.

I haven't done many snow/winter scenes, so here is another go at it.  An Amish farm down in Pennsylvania.

House on the hill

10.5x14" on watercolor paper coated with burgundy colorfix primer

A new painting started from yesterday. I started from the sky which I don't normally due and I'm working my way down to the foreground. Although last night at about midnight I wanted to ruff in the value, hues and intensity before I forgot what I was thinking. So alot of patchy stuff at the bottom.

The house in the distance was horrible to work with! I continually messed up straight lines on the roof, thereby having to re due sky area, to which I didn't want to fool with. It was originally a different type of house with the windows set halfway into the roof line..without dormers and two stories. It had a strange addition off to the left side that I just couldn't make "real looking". So off with that house and onto a more"New England" type of house. Buildings are my nemesis. I also added New England type trees, where the photo was all pasture.

Originally there is a sheep on the left side, the untouched spot (red section). It is quite big and staring into the camera. Now I'm not sure if I want to put him there...maybe a few grazing ones further into the painting.

Lets hope I don't mess it up, since I have decided to post this as WIP(work in progress).

2 cows grazing more

Another update to the cow painting. Trying to add further darks into the painting. Adding more warms into the foreground again.

Hoping that this is the finish. I increased the lights on the cows and played around with the shadows on them. Darkened the grass with greens, blues and oranges.

2 Cows Grazing in Field

12X16" on mat board coated with colorfix primer

A new painting this week. I needed to do some more landscapes and wanted to give the cross-hatching a break. I started off with nupastel for the under painting and began to ruff in the mountains and sky first. I hated the mountain color and decided that the house and barn were much too large for its placement. I like the cows though :)


I decided to wash it off thanks to the colorfix primer. You have to really look, but I changed the house barn to an intirely new one with the side facing into the sun...and smaller. Not much else besides ruffing in the irrigation stream.


I then changed the mountain to a purple pink and got bored with the regular type of strokes with the side of the pastel. So I started cross-hatching again. The house looks much better and shows more atmosphere now.


Added more green to the front trying to get warms in front and cools in the back. I added more greens to the tree line toning it down somewhat.



This last one had more darks added to it to increase the value range in the painting. Larger strokes in the forefront, smaller as it goes back. I lightly suggested a path going opposite direction of the water/weeds hoping to create a zigzag effect.

I'm going to sit on this for a bit and decide if I need to add something else.

vermont farm

An update for today. I added some darks, finished up the leaves on the right hand tree. And pulled some of the highlights back in. I also added in the gate, I think it helps to direct your eye to the left and down the path. Now I'm just looking to decide if its done.

vermont farm

Here is a close up crop of Clara. I think as a whole the painting needs so more intense colors.

Vermont Farm

An update to my farm painting. I decided give another try at cross-hatching and thought that the farm I had started would be a good base. Since I already had the basic value and hues I found it easier to work in the hatching. So the next one I will take the good advice from my pals on WetCanvas.com and use an under painting. Although the photo I took did not have the hens in it, I think it needed something to anchor it into a life situation. So the hens are mine, good thing a had some photos because none of them would stay put yesterday. I am thinking about putting in a rooster and chicks, I think it still needs a story.
I will put a crop in the next post so you can see the strokes.

Pond At Macks Apples Plein Air

pastel 11x14
Plein Aire
Painted with the Plein Aire Society Of New Hampshire today. They were actually in Londonderry where I live and had several different spots around town. This one is across from Macks Apple stand, a small pond with apple trees in the background. I painted this with a different approach than I usually do, its a broken color tech., where you keep applying color crossing each other to allow it to mix visually with your eyes. I am finding it hard to get my colors as bright as I would in the studio, another lesson to be learned.

Vermont Farm

Pastel 11"x14"
This is from SugarBush Farms in Vermont, they make really great cheese from a collective of farmers in the area. This is looking down into the side yard. I decided to paint this without an underpainting on watercolor paper primed with colorfix primer. Next stage is to include some of red metal gates and a small post fence off the barn to the left. Fill in leaves and work on the trunk of the right hand tree.