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!

Seeking Social Sheep

 "Seeking Social Sheep" (pastel, 30x40 inches) $6000 framed

It's done!! I've been way overdue for another large painting, and had been eager to get going on this one for months, all sorts of other things getting in the way.... but finally, with an art fest coming up, I really really HAD to get it done! This new sheep painting will be with me at the Naples Downtown Art Show, March 19&20, in Naples Florida. If you're in the area, come see me in booth 222.

See some progress pics here!

Day 15 of 28: "Nio"

 

Day 15 of 28: "Nio" (pastel, 6x6 inches) bid or buy

Nio is a young Pygmy goat. I have a gazillion pics of his parents, siblings, cousins, aunts and friends belonging to a friend of mine. They're so much fun to visit in the springtime. All that silly jumping and bleating.

See progress pics here!

Wimby Kitty

"Wimby Kitty" (pastel, 8x8 inches)

Here's Wimby Kitty, the adorable little cat from last month's VOS Episode 80! Subscribe to my Patreon to watch the full video with commentary here!

Wimby is a friend of CallieCal, another black and white kitty I painted a while back. They look very similar but are no relations.

See a quick speed video here!

Red Red - Day 10 of 21-in-31

"Red Red" (pastel, 10x10 inches)

Here's the horse portrait I mentioned yesterday on the post for "Sa Sa". This makes a complete set for this client!

"Sa Sa" (pastel, 12x9 inches)

"Tuan Tuan" (pastel, 10x10 inches)

"Dot Dot" (pastel, 8x6 inches)

 

Watch a quick speed video of Red Red's painting process here!

Gothart - Day 5 of 21-in-31

 

"Gothart" (pastel, 8x10 inches) bid or buy here

This was one of the underpaintings I had in my last batch. I hadn't finished a painting in a couple days; I've been working hard on more underpaintings for several commissions. This face has been calling to me because I really was pleased with the freshness of the underpainting and I thought I might be able to get the pasteling done fairly quickly too... so I jumped right on it after completing the commissions' underpaintings. It wasn't quite as quick as I'd hoped, but I'm happy with the result anyway.

BTW, here's a peek at most of the underpaintings I've got going now.... The dogs and horse and dove are commissions:

I'll probably be pasteling one of these at Monday's Virtual Open Studio, Aug 9. If you'd like to join us you can register on my site here!

And visit this page to see some progress pics of Gothart the goat!

---------------

And in case you missed this message earlier...
 
The Feedburner team announced that their email subscription service will be discontinued in July 2021. As a result, Blogger’s email subscription widget, also known as FollowByEmail, will be turned off. Specifically, the email subscription system will no longer work and subscribers to Google blogs will no longer receive email updates.
 
SO! If you're receiving this post via email, I thank you for your subscription, but you will no longer be getting these delivered to you from my Google Blog after this month.  
 
But don't despair! Here are two ways you can still get my (almost) Daily Paintings in your inbox!
 
#1 - Sign up for my website's New Art Alerts. I basically have been pasting the same info into my website art posts as I do here, so you won't be missing a thing. CLICK HERE to get my New Art Alerts from my website at RitaKirkman.com.
 
#2 - Follow my public Patreon Posts. Sure, Patreon is a subscription-based creative support platform, but you don't have to pay anything for my public posts, and just about all of my new work gets posted on my Patreon page, usually with cool little extras like progress pics or short speed videos! CLICK HERE to go to my Patreon Page and right below the membership levels, next to a button that says "share" is a button that says "follow". It's that easy! (Browse around my other free posts while you're in there..)
 
Thanks so much for liking my work and following my blog. Here's to many more years of following my Website or my Patreon, and to many more years of creating!

Day 8 of 30 - Backyard Baby

Day 8 of 30 paintings in June - "Backyard Baby" (pastel, 7x5 inches) bid or buy here for a limited time

This sweet fox lives in our back yard. He usually only comes out at night, but I managed to get a few pics one evening when the sun was just setting. He was just a youngster then. My husband has seen him recently and says he's much bigger now. 

The photo I took was much cooler in tone, but the underpainting colors I use helped create a warmer look!

See the reference photo and a little speed video of this baby here!

Day 1 of 30 - Nyum Nyum Nyum

 Day 1 of 30 "Nyum Nyum Nyum" (pastel, 8x8 inches) bid or buy here

So I'm going to do it! A 30-in-30 month of Daily Paintings for June! I've been putting it off for way too long. My last 30-in-30 was January last year. I had been doing November for quite a while but missed 2019 completely.
I still don't think I have the time for this, but so what! No excuses! It feels SO good to complete a month of paintings, that I've made a new Facebook Daily Painting Challenge group, and would love if you want to join and paint your own month (or week, or whatever length of time you can set for yourself) of daily paintings with us!
This squirrel I had underpainted a while back, and pasteled today for my first day of June. Enjoy a gif of progress images here!

"Winter/Spring"

"Winter/Spring" (pastel, 10x22 inches) $980

I just love how white wooly sheep look in late sunlight. This is my 4th or 5th medium/large sheep painting, all from the same "photo shoot" of a beautiful herd that I discovered on the way home from somewhere a few years ago. It was abut 5 o'clock and the light was fantastic, and the sheep were a wonderful mix of young and old, shorn and thickly unshorn. I must have taken over a hundred photos as they milled about. Sometimes I'll use various photos for my compositions, but these two happened to be standing next to each other just like this when I snapped the photo.

I loved the contrast of shapes and the challenge of using an even number of subjects in a composition.  I decided to crop it long and narrow to fit this gold frame. 

This one will be going to the Art Connections Gallery in La Grange Texas on Friday for my featured wall this month. I'm so excited to have been found by this gallery right after the Gallery at Round Top had closed. Serendipity!

You can see me working through most of the pastel process of these sheep (in real-time) in this post on my Patreon page (the Bunny Buddies level.)

Don Kiefer

“Don Kiefer” (pastel, 12x6 inches) $400 framed

I realized my inventory was low on donkeys, so here’s another one. Don Kiefer will be with me at the Midland TX SeptemberFest next weekend, Sept 7-9, 2018.
Click here for festival info and tickets! Hope to see you there!

See progress shots below:

Thanks for reading! Please share!

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!

Thanks for reading! Please share!

Surely

"Surely" (pastel, 7x5 inches) $200 unframed for a limited time, or $265 framed.

Surely, this is a sheep.
;)

I’ve been having an enjoyable 4 days driving east for my 4 summer workshops. The first one starts tomorrow in Gastonia, NC.

There are still a few spaces in my VA and TX workshops coming up on the next two weekends after this! Visit my workshop page for registration info. Treat yourself to a summer ART vacation!

See progress shots below:

Thanks for reading! Please share!

Cotton Bun (and workshops!)

"Cotton Bun" (pastel, 12x6 inches) $385 framed

These next few days will be the last of my posts until my east coast workshops begin. I head out on monday for my SUMMER ROAD TRIP! Yeah!! Usually I like to just go NORTH, but this year I'm off to North Carolina and Virginia, which if memory serves me right, are not all THAT much cooler than Texas this time of year. But hopefully it will be an improvement on the 100+ temps next week is promising my area.

In any case, my workshops are all indoors! By the way, there are still some spaces in a few of them... It's not too late to sign up! Just tell the organizers you're coming, and bring a check with you!

July 19-21, 2018 - Gastonia, NC (near Charlotte) - Contact Nancy Kennedy at nckennedyart@gmail.com
July 27-29, 2018 - at the VECCA, Woodstock, VA - Contact Donna Patton at dkpatton@shentel.net

August 3-5, 2018 - Painted Views Ranch, Florence, TX - To register contact Kirk at paintedviewsranch@gmail.com

 For more info visit my Workshop Page!
 Hope to see you!

Meanwhile, enjoy these progress shots of Cotton Bun:

Thanks for reading! Please share!

June

"June" (pastel, 10x10 inches) $390 unframed for a limited time, or $480 framed

It's still June! I painted this at the last minute to end the month. In other news, check out my website's updated design! It's been a long time in the making.

See progress shots below:

 Thanks for reading! Please share!