SRV

12x18.5
Soft Pastel on Sennelier La Carte Paper
Price: NFS
Year painted: 2004
Pastels used: Nupastel, Rembrandt, Schmincke
Source: Photo found on the Internet.
No copyright info available.
I had worked on black canvases with oils and acrylics, and wanted to explore darker papers for pastel painting as well. I used charcoal colored La Carte paper for this painting because I wanted the colors to "pop" (and I couldn’t afford to buy other brands of sanded pastel paper that come in black). The original image from the Internet had a low resolution and was rather blurry, which allowed me some freedom of color interpretation.

Cheek to Cheek

12x18.5
Soft Pastel on Sennelier La Carte Paper
Price: NFS
Year painted: 2004
Pastels used: Nupastel, Rembrandt, Schmincke
Source: Photograph taken by the artist’s sister.
Used by permission.
My sister supplied the adorable but tiny 2.5x3.5” photo of my nephew for this painting, which was unfortunately very underexposed and nearly colorless. This was before I had access to digital imaging and photo editing programs, so after completing the initial sketch, I just let my imagination run wild and had fun with the colors. A baby’s happy smile is one of the nicest things to paint.

Birgit with Braid

9x12
Soft Pastel on Canson Mi Teintes Paper
Price: NFS
Year painted: 2004
Pastels used: Nupastel, Rembrandt, Schmincke
Source: Photograph taken by the artist’s sister.
Used by permission.
My sister likes to take pictures of herself with her digital camera. I enjoyed learning how to create the textures and colors of her hair from this sketch. I painted on the reverse of the Canson Mi Teintes paper to avoid the holey texture, which also gave me less "tooth" to work with, however. The challenge in pastel painting is to not overwork the paper, i.e., to not fill it with so much pigment that it can't take/accept any more. Yes, even paper can reject you. :)

Two Watercolor Sketches

7x8 (each)
Watercolor on Paper
1978
Source: Live models.
In 10th grade, one of the mediums we explored in art class was watercolors. I can't say that I liked watercolor much, except for this one exercise. We had three minutes for each sketch, done from a live model (students from our class). My first sketch was horrible, so I didn't save it, but number 2 (on the left) and number 3 turned out. I was really pleased with the sketch of the girl -- until my teacher, Mrs. Dzaebel, happened to walk by and just yanked it off my desk, lifted it up to show the class and exclaimed: "This is what it's supposed to look like!" While I watched in horror as the wet paint dripped down the paper and ruined my theretofore perfect sketch. I don't think I ever really forgave Mrs. Dzaebel for ruining the little painting, even though I got an A. Anyway, it's a great exercise for learning to see the essentials and being "loose" in your approach.