Celestia (and the Hottest Art Festival in Texas!)

"Celestia"  (pastel, 6x6 inches)  $249 Available at The Gallery at Round Top

Almost back in the swing of things in the studio! I finished 3 new little lambs over the weekend, along with yesterday's fawn. I prepped up a 20x10 donkey underpainting but am not sure if I'll have time complete that one before the Rockport Art Festival this weekend. All these new ones will be with me there, July 4&5, 2015. Whatever I don't finish I'll probably take with me to 'demo' while I sit by my booth... always a great attention-grabber!

I've also donated another little painting to the silent auction benefiting art educational programs; one of my recent little bunnies "Clover"...

Speaking of "little" paintings, my California Workshop still has some spaces left! This is my classic pastel workshop, focusing on painting small and often. For beginner to advanced! Click the flyer below for a closer view, and visit my workshop page for more info and a convenient Paypal link!

Hope you can make it by to Rockport this weekend if you're in the area! (Yea, it's always hot! But so is the rest of Texas, so you might as well spend the weekend in Rockport!)

Meanwhile, here are some progress shots of Celestia:

 I start with an underpainting of acrylic-based pastel primers. These are a gold color and a terra cotta color. The gold one is Quiacridone Nickel Azo Gold fluid acrylic color mixed into Golden (brand) Fine Pumice Gel. The gel is clear, so the color mixture is semi-transparent, and gets darker on each application. Then I add Art Spectrum (brand) Pastel Primer in the terra cotta color. I lay it into the darkest areas, then scrub and dry-brush it into the medium values of the gold to continue the value scale and add more depth to the monochromatic underpainting.

 After working up a whole "batch" of underpaintings, I'll do the pastel part on each, one at a time..

 I used to work strictly "Dark to Light" as is best with pastel as a general rule. But after several workshops with various artists and lots of experience, I discovered...

 that one can work the darks and lights of pastel in whatever order one wishes, as long as the...

 main value categories (light, medium, and dark) remain separated and don't intermingle in the way that...

 colors in the same value categories can. Within the same value categories, where colors are layered up, there one builds the values from dark to light. (It helps to catch my main value categories in my underpainting!)

Thanks for watching! Please share! (I'd love to FILL my first California Workshop! ;)

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