I'm so not a writer!

I still have to get used to blogging! I don't write a whole lot as far as journaling goes, especially with an 18 month old who wants 100% attention. Anyway, I have been pretty busy drawing/painting lately.

CVA Midwest Winter Show
The show officially opened last Friday and had a great turnout. I was there for most of the time, lots of food! :) The quality of the pieces was very good this year. I haven't seen the previous years work, but sometimes I am disappointed in what is in the gallery. There were pieces from 11 states, coast-to-coast. I'm hoping my little piece would get someones attention and it has. I have two commissions resulting from that. Not a lot of money, but it's something! I figure it's worth it to do to make up for all the art supplies I have bought over the last two years. Now I can really use them up!

I also got to talk to the director and I'm hoping to be able to teach a class this summer. I really miss teaching and I think this would be a great outlet for me. I have to find out when it will be, I'm due in August -- I should still be able to teach, as long as I don't have the babes on the day of the class!



Truck #2
Here's what I have been working on for a couple of weeks now. It's not that it has taken that long, it's just that I'm beat at the end of the day lately. I'm hoping my energy level increases as I approach the second trimester.

This is the first commission I have had for a while. It's on Wallis sanded paper, pastel pencils mainly and some soft pastel, 10"x8". It was two photos combined, I had to include the gas station in the background somehow and make it a different kind (Texaco). Not sure if it's the way I want it to look yet. I need some distance to get a good judgement.

The big issue I have is as always, the background. I'm not sure if adding trees will be convincing enough. Not much to go on in the photo, but that's where I have to work my magic!

Done!

"Maggie's Daffodil"
11"x14" Colored Pencil on Cream Colored Stonehenge Paper

Here it is, finished. I adjusted the color so it is closer to the actual image.

I'm glad it's done, the thing about it is that it has so much time involved in it, was it worth it? I'm hoping to get it into a juried show this month, if it doesn't get in, I'm afraid I'll be horribly disappointed. I have two other paintings I did since this one just so I have a better chance of getting something in.


"Beautiful Truck"
Pastel on Pastelbord 8"x10"

I have never worked on a pastel in this fashion before. It's always been on a watercolor as more of motion marks. I never used real pastels either, always "nupastels", which are a very hard consistency. I bought some Sennelier pastels to finish the piece which gave it some punch and boy are they velvety! I hardly have to put the pastel to the board and it leaves a heavy mark.

The majority was done in pastel pencil and some nupastel.


"Past Their Prime"
8"x10" Colored Pencil on Strathmore 500 Illustration Board

This piece was the first time I used colored pencils on a hard board and also used a solvent (unconventional Isopropyl Alcohol). The background is mostly done with the solvent application. Not an easy thing to control for me. I'm not sure if I'm doing it right. I didn't like using Turpentine, too greasy. I think next time I'll try to use heat instead of anything solvent based. I see wonderful things done with just melting the pencil lead on the surface of the paper.