My Faves of January!

As a review of my first January 31-in-31, here are a few of my favorites!

Clockwise from upper left:
"Intent" (pastel, 6x6) on hold for the Austin Pastel Society Members Exhibition in March.
"Passing Stormclouds" (pastel, 14x14) available at the Carriage House Gallery.
"Chewy" (pastel, 8x8) also available at the Carriage House Gallery, along with
"Road Sketch #35" (pastel, 3x5)
"Frog #20" (pastel, 6x4) sold
and "Firebrand" (pastel, 12x12)

It was a real challenge to do the dailies so early in the year in a month usually reserved for resting, paperwork, and planning, but I'm glad I did, because who knows when some of these paintings would have been done otherwise!? I've resolved to at least paint more frequently this year than I did last year... that's as much as I can promise...



But for now I'll be taking a short rest from blogs and social media while I get ready for the San Antonio Rodeo, where I'll be in my 25th year drawing quick portraits from life (and now caricatures too!) Find me in booth c-415 on the floor of the Coliseum just down the stairs from the front entrance.
February 6-23. SARodeo.com

Day 31 - West Texas #5

"West Texas #5" (pastel, 5x7 inches)

Day 31 of my 31-in-31 in January 2020! YAY, I did it!!

And I did manage to find one last old board that already had a brushed-off old painting on it. This was a 5x7 Ampersand Pastelbord, and I brought up the values with some Art Spectrum off-white pigment ink, which was amazingly opaque. Fun to work with and giving me all kinds of ideas!

 These two colors in the pots above are two of the combos of toned pumice primers that I've been working with. The gold color is a mix of some of the Art Spectrum pigmented ink yellows and gold ochre mixed into the Art Spectrum clear multimedia & pastel primer (which contains pumice.)
The blue is some Golden brand fluid acrylic ultramarine mixed with the Golden brand fine pumice gel.
I also used a bit of Art Spectrum's terra cotta multimedia & pastel primer, thinned down in some of their clear primer. (Yes... the three primaries, all you need! :)

Then, for the pastel...

Thanks for watching! Please share!

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Day 30 - Road Sketch #36

"Road Sketch #36" (pastel, 5x3 inches)

Day 30 of my 31-in-31 of January!

This is the utility easement at the back edge of the neighborhood next to mine. I like to walk there.

I did find one more 3x5 ancient landscape in my shelves that I was happy to turn into something more current. :)

Day 29 - Self Caricature

"Me, 2019" (Prismacolor markers and art stix, 14x11 inches)

Day 29 of my 31-in-31 posts in January.

Yeah you guessed it, no new painting today. So here's something a little different to celebrate the San Antonio Rodeo coming up February 6-23, 2020. Some of you know that I've been doing caricatures since 1988 with a long history of working in amusement parks, and I still do them each year at the SA Rodeo along with quick portrait sketches.

This is my recent updated caricature, the first one I've done of me in a couple decades. Here's my old one, from (wow) ...18 years ago... Been a long time since I've had long hair and short bangs!

Come on out to the Rodeo if you're in the area! Find my booth in the Freeman Coliseum just down the stairs from the front entrance.

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Day 28 - Firebrand

"Firebrand" (pastel, 12x12 inches)

Day 28 of my 31-in-31 of January 2020!

This was an old, old painting that was started years ago and never finished. I just didn't like it and I thought it was the high-noon light source.

But doing a 31-in-31 tends to clear out the excuses and when making the choice between starting a new painting from scratch or seeing what can be done with some old thing that was already underpainted, I'll pick the one that already had a head start!

Without overthinking too much, I grabbed this off the shelf saying "Let me just finish this one finally!" I did a quick critique and saw that it wasn't the light source so much, but my underpainting had not caught my values correctly. The shadows on the white fur were way too light.

old, incomplete painting, circa 2015

Especially apparent after wiping off the old pastel...

So, a quick decision had me eager to make my primary value for this composition a darker mid-tone rather than leave all that light value competing with the dark dark fur.

So, I went at it with more primers:

There also seemed to be something a bit sad and malnourished about her in the first painting, so I filled out her face a bit more.

So a lesson to all you working artists, don't stress the failures, just learn to stop when you know it's not going well, and put it aside for a while (a few years maybe?) until you can look at it with fresh eyes and finish it when your skill level has improved.

Day 27 - Windsong

"Windsong" (pastel, 16x8 inches) on hold

Day 27 of my 31-in-31 of January! In the final stretch now!

This was a request from a client before Christmas. Finally getting to it. I showed her a few of my favorite fawn photos and she picked this pose. I like how it came out. I named her Windsong because it looks like she is listening to the wind.

Day 26 - Road Sketch #35

"Road Sketch #35" (pastel, 3x5 inches) $150 framed

Day 26 of my 31-in-31 goal in January!

This was the last little recycled painting on Ampersand Pastelbord from last week's underpaintings. (Visit this post to see my recycling process.)

Here's how it looks framed: