New Years Art Resolutions, and my Blog is Moving!

 

"Park Trail #62" (pastel, 6x12 inches) bid or buy

 I wrote a really nice long inspirational New Years post today about painting more, and you can read it here! (or on my Patreon page.)

What I really want to say here is that my blog is moving! I'm retiring this location and continuing with the Daily Painting posts on my new website blog... 

(Update: Nah, don't go there either I decided not to use a website blog. Just go straight to my Patreon, EVERYTHING gets posted there!! 😃 And tons of free public posts to entertain you if you don't want to subscribe yet.)

But you can always find them also on my Patreon page, and on DailyPaintworks.

I won't delete this blog, I just won't post here any more. Thanks for being great fans! See ya around on the web in other places.

Happy New Year!

"Brimli" Bunny

 

"Brimli" (pastel, 8x8 inches) bid or buy

My Patreon patrons chose this cute grooming bunny for me to pastel last week at my Virtual Open Studio. Moo-tastic Muses and Bunny Buddies on my Patreon can watch the complete pasteling video here!

The rest of y'all can enjoy this speed video! 😎

Beau

 

"Beau" (pastel, 7x5 inches) bid or buy

 Here's "Beau", from VOS Episode 124 Part 2, which I finally finished. (Muses and Buddies on my Patreon can watch it here!)

See a quick speed video of "Beau" here!

Screech Owl

 "Screech Owl" (pastel, 8x6 inches) bid or buy

Here's the star of Saturday's Paint-Along - the Screech Owl! This one's a little different... Instead of my usual pastel primer underpainting, I used some UArt paper  that had some pastel washed in with alcohol, something I had left over from someone else's workshop months ago. I figured I'd put it to use! So instead of building an acrylic-based underpainting, I basically started with a value drawing of the owl using a black Rembrandt pastel.

 See a quick speed video here!

"Finley" the Fawn

 

"Finley" (pastel, 7x5 inches) bid or buy

See a 40 second slide show video of the creation of Finley here!

"Park Trail #61" and Mark Cole Workshop

 "Park Trail #61" (pastel on Ampersand Pastelbord, 14x11 inches) bid or buy here

The first day of Mark Ivan Cole's workshop was fantastic! He demoed a wonderfully moody and atmospheric woodsy creek. Many of us were surprised by his method, which starts off very loose!

My painting here is from a photo I took "somewhere in TN" according to my endless photo files. I thought it looked like a Mark Cole scene, though I swung myself into a method I used in a workshop with Rae Smith in 2017, when I painted one of my fave landscapes, Park Trail #39. And the Pastelbord handled the many layers very well.

See some progress pics here!

Don Keyfurry

 

"Don Keyfurry" (pastel, 8x8 inches) bid or buy here

 The star of my recent Donkey Paint-Along! For your enjoyment, here's a fun speed video!

"Gurty" the White Cow

 

"Gurty" (pastel, 6x6 inches) bid or buy

Here's a quick high quality GIF for you, and guess what? I made it myself! My son showed me how. There's a program that only works on Mac or Linux... well, I won't bore you. But I'll probably have to get my son to show me again the next few times too. (PS: If this GIF doesn't play for you, click to watch it here!)

 

Gurty is short for "Yogurt" because doesn't she look like vanilla? Today's your lucky day too because I finished painting Gurty in my Virtual Open Studio Episode 118, Part 2, which I decided to make public for everyone to watch! The 30-minute episode picks up early on in the pastel process, as I had started Gurty elsewhere, but I did manage to find good enough progress pics to put this GIF together. I hope you enjoy it! (And the video too!)

Argie in his Blanket

 

"Argie in his Blanket" (pastel, 8x6 inches) bid or buy

Here's a quick speed video of Argie expertly edited by my son. Enjoy!

Muses and Buddies on my Patreon can watch the real-time video in Episode 122 here!

If you pay attention you can see when I when I wipe off most of the first try, to correct the drawing and values and paint it again!

Ramiro

 "Ramiro" (pastel, 10x17) bid or buy

Enjoy this speed video of this, my latest sheep painting! https://youtu.be/gQW-AM4FIrY

Star of the "Baby Bunny" Paint-Along!

 

"Baby Bunny" (pastel, 8x6 inches) bid or buy

Here's a little "Baby Bunny" for your enjoyment!

You might notice I used some black Art Spectrum primer over my usual gold and terra cotta on the underpainting, to get a good base tone for this black bunnyling. I did smudge some T.L. Eggplant and black pastel in there first, just to demonstrate an alternative.

I also decided to continue the little confetti-like strokes into the background to echo  the texture of bunny fur. :)

Muses and Buddies on my Patreon can watch and paint along to the full length Baby Bunny Paint-Along video of Episode 119!

See a quick speed video here!

#21 of 21-in-31 "Young Kingbirds on a Wire"

 

Day #21 of 21-in-31: "Young Kingbirds on Wire" (pastel, 10x8 inches) available, and will be with me at the Midland Septemberfest Art festival Sept 9-11, 2022.

My final painting of my monthly goal! Yay! This painting will soon be with me at the Midland Septemberfest Art festival Sept 9-11, 2022, unless it sells here first. ;)

See some progress pics on my Patreon Page!

#19 of 21-in-31 "Mewler Contented"

 

"Mewler Contented" (pastel, 10x8 inches, available framed) might be with me at the Midland Septemberfest Art festival Sept 9-11, 2022.

Back to some of my last underpainting batch now, heading into the final paintings of my month's goal!

This was from a pic of Mewler as a kitten, sitting on my lap in the morning. First thing in the morning (before the house has warmed back up to summertime temps) is the only time he's a snuggly lap cat.

I had fun painting all these textures! I hope you enjoy this quick video of the pasteling. I was able to leave a considerable amount of underpainting showing... Mewler's coloring was a good warm match for the gold and terra cotta colors.

"Sentinel" from Richard Wilson Paint-Along

 

"Sentinel" from Richard Wilson Paint-Along (pastel, 9x12 inches) buy here

Yay! Thanks to Richard Wilson, I feel like I can now paint trees, fairly successfully. With trunks. And branches. This subject has been my bane for ever, and after this paint-along I'm feeling much more comfortable.

Richard gave a wonderful demo of this tree-lined river during Pastel Live, which I painted along to. See some progress pics and read about my thoughts here.

This painting will be with me at the Midland Septemberfest Art festival Sept 9-11, 2022 (unless it sells first.)

Day #17 of 21-in-31: "Vineyard" from the Brenda Boylan, Pastel Live Paint-Along

 

Day #17 of 21-in-31: "Vineyard" from the Brenda Boylan, Pastel Live Paint-Along (pastel, 10x10 inches) Unframed for a limited time, $425 includes US shipping.
This one was fun! Brenda is such a cheerful person overflowing with giggles. I painted this one along with her Pastel Live demo. Her approach is a bit different than mine, although she does underpaint for her light and shadow, she underpaints with blues in the shadows and yellow in the lights. So, it was about a half-familiar method!
Read about how I tweaked this one today before I felt it was finished...

"Bird of Paradise" from Lyn Dieffenbach Paint-Along

 "Bird of Paradise from Lyn Dieffenbach Paint-Along" (pastel, 6x8 inches) bid or buy
(Also, #15 of my 21-in-31 August goal!)
My friend Lyn Dieffenbach was one of the faculty for Pastel Live 2022, and on Saturday I was feeling energized enough to try painting along to some of the demos, including Lyn's! Read about how I met Lyn, and peek at a couple of her 2007 plein air landscapes, here!

#14 of 21-in-31 "Rooster Mini"

 

"Rooster Mini" (pastel 4x4 inches) bid or buy

Oh what a day! Today was the last day of Pastel Live and I decided to actually paint along to 4 of the demos... Karen Margulis, Richard Wilson, Brenda Boylan and Lyn Dieffenbach... Whew, I'm exhausted and pumped up! (I wanted to paint with Albert Handell too, but it was way too late and simply watching was wonderfully inspiring.)

I think I probably want to tweak most of those in the next few days (having only one hour each to work on them 🤪) so here's the last mini from Tuesday's VOS... (Which Muses and Buddies on Patreon can watch me pastel in real time in Episode 115)

Enjoy this quick speed video of the whole process. I just love backlit rooster combs!

#10 of 21-in-31 "Busy Bee Mini"

 

#10 of 21-in-31 "Busy Bee Mini" (pastel, 4x4 inches) bid or buy

I pasteled FOUR little minis at today's Virtual Open Studio! Here's the last one first because my son likes it best.

The Episode 115 video is still in editing, but will be posted soon for Muses and Buddies! Meanwhile, enjoy this speed video!

#9 of 21-in-31 "Summer Road Trip"

 

 

"Summer Road Trip" (pastel, 8x8 inches) bid or buy

Here's the first star of Saturday's "Summer Road Trip" Paint-Along, so I titled this painting the same. This is painted on white Art Spectrum Colourfix paper with a pastel underpainting washed in with alcohol. I liked the result! I clipped out some key still shots from the video to make a little slide show video for you of my process.

I only tweaked it a little bit afterwards, adding some green (with pastel pencil) to the sky and other little bits of color, including some pink in the distant fields, to pull the color harmony together.

Enjoy!

(Muses and Buddies can see the entire paint-along here!)

#8 of 21-in-31 "Twilight Road II"

 "Twilight Road II" (pastel on UArt 320 dark, 6x8 inches) bid or buy here 

This is one of the paintings I did for the Summer Road Trip Paint-Along on Saturday! I really liked the photo and painted it almost just like it was. Nice when that happens.

 

The paint-Along video is in editing progress and hopefully will be posted by Monday some time. But of course with my 21 goal this month I wanted to post these! Stay tuned for the other Road Trip painting tomorrow.

 

It was a great group at the Paint-Along. I'm eager to show off their paintings to you! meanwhile, enjoy this little GIF, here!