Blue Boy

“Blue Boy” (pastel over acrylic/pumice primers, 8x8 inches) $300 unframed for a limited time, or $375 framed.

This plump Angus bull was my final animal demo in Greensboro last week. I’ve been trying to demo at least one painting in each new workshop that will demonstrate my new blue primer color in my under-painting. I’m ready finding it exciting, but it needs a definite “blue-ness” to the animal for best impact. This bull is mostly the under-painting! ...Which I guess would make him technically a mixed-media rather than pastel...
But the terra cotta primer and the ultramarine layer up so well together!

For a pretty good description of this process with the blue, read my post for “Blue Bunny”!

The only difference with this bull was that I forgot to put some terra cotta before the blue and layered it in between instead... but got the nice deep dark effect I was hoping for anyway!

See progress shots below:

 This is what the finished under-painting looked like! Not much more to do!

Lumi

“Lumi” (pastel, 7x5 inches) $200 unframed for a limited time, or $265 framed

Lumi means “snow” in Finnish. This was one of my triple-demo from my VA workshop over the weekend.

Next weekend, August 3-5, I’ll be giving another workshop in Florence TX. There are still a few spaces available! Treat yourself to an art vacation! See more info on my workshop page or click the flyer below:

Some progress shots of Lumi:

And here are a couple of really cool panoramic shots one of my students took of the classroom!

The workshop was held at the St. Paul’s Heritage Center in Edinburg VA. Very cool place!

Blue Bill

 “Blue Bill” (pastel, 12x6 inches) sold

This was the third in my triple demo from my workshop in Woodstock VA this weekend. I didn’t quite have enough time to finish him on Saturday so I made him my first demo on Sunday morning.

The workshop went went very well; lots of raw talent and various styles among the students!

I’m heading back to Texas today; I’ll get to Florence TX by Thursday for my last workshop of the trip, at Painted Views Ranch next weekend, August 3-5.

There are still a few spaces left in that one... to register contact Kirk at paintedviewsranch@gmail.com, and visit my workshop page (https://ritakirkman.com/page/14193/workshops-and-shows) for more info!

Meanwhile, here are a few progress shots of Blue Bill:

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Oscar

“Oscar” (pastel, 8x6 inches) sold

Oscar was a demo from my Gastonia workshop last weekend, that just sold to a student today. He was my demonstration of the new blue color that I’ve been sometimes adding to my under-paintings. Since “Blue Bunny” from earlier in the month, I’ve been excited about this ultramarine blue in some of the animal paintings that have any kind of blue-ish lights in dark fur!

I only caught three progress shots of Oscar, but you can see some great shots of Blue Bunny on this blog post!

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Fluffy Stuff

“Fluffy Stuff” (pastel, 7x5 inches) sold

I didn’t quite get finished with this morning’s demo, so here’s another from Greensboro, that sold there.  When someone buys a new painting that’s not titled yet, I let them help pick the name. She wanted Marshmallow, but I’d already used that title. I wasn’t averse to using it again since it had been a few years and the other Marshmallow was a bunny I think. But we settled on Fluffy Stuff instead. :)

Here are just a few progress shots:

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Taylor

“Taylor” (pastel, 6x6 inches) sold

The third of my triple-demo in my Greensboro workshop this week. Tomorrow I’ll be in Woodstock VA for my weekend workshop!
Visit my workshop page for a complete schedule!

Here are a few progress shots:

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Sprout

“Sprout” (pastel, 6x6 inches) $200 unframed for a limited time, or $265 framed

Sprout was another from my triple demo yesterday in the Greensboro workshop. Today was the last day and I caught a group shot (minus one lady who had to go close on a house.) Thanks a huge bunch to Laura Pollak for sharing her beautiful home for the workshop!

This coming weekend (July 27-29) I’ll be in Woodstock VA for another workshop at the Valley Educational Center for the Creative Arts (VECCA). There are still a couple spaces that have come available, if you or anyone you know would like a summer art vacation! Contact Donna Patton at dkpatton@shentel.net to register. See more info on my website workshop page!

Meanwhile, here are a few progress shots of Sprout:

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Candy

“Candy” (pastel, 7x5 inches) $200 unframed for a limited time, or $265 framed.

This was one of my triple demo today in the Greensboro workshop. A popular demo of mine is to prep up three under-paintings  simultaneously in the morning, then after lunch I add the pastel to each in a row. This is how I work in my own studio when doing my small “dailies”, but on a larger scale (like 8-10 under-paintings at a time!) students get a good feel for how I manage this assembly-line approach.

See some shots of this progress below (with a peek at the other two paintings coming up in the next posts!):

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