Queso

"Queso"  (pastel, 6x6 inches)  click here to bid

Snuck a couple of small ones in today before heading out to a pastel portrait workshop by Clayton J. Beck III, up in Georgetown, TX. His portraits are amazing!

Saturday night I'll be at the ACT International Invitational Exhibit in Fayetteville, TX. Click the link to see the show online!

Here's the progress of Queso:

Darleigh

"Darleigh"  (pastel, 8x8 inches) $325 framed

Darleigh is another sister or cousin of Lavender. They were strolling together with the rest of the family through Landa Park when I was lucky enough to have my camera.

No auction on this one. I must seriously concentrate on increasing my inventory for the Bayou City Art Fest, March 28-30. Most new work this month is getting framed immediately. (Purchase inquiries are welcome before the festival, however!)

here are some progress shots:

Thanks for watching! Please share!

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Nacho - Donation for the Art Heist in Houston

"Nacho" (pastel, 10" circle)

Nacho is my donation to the "Art Heist: Radiant Orchid Thief" fundraiser at the Bayou City Art Festival in Houston, coming up on March 30, 2014.

The Art Festival will be my 4th or 5th time there, and hopefully I'll have the same space as last year, near the entrance. It's always a good show!

Here are some progress shots of Nacho:

Thanks for watching! Please share!

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Guinness

"Guinness"  (pastel, 6x6 inches)  click here to bid

Here's my quick one for the day, in between priming new circles.

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Charlie

"Charlie"  (pastel, 12x12 inches)  $400 unframed for a limited time

Well, February is almost over and I've had a busy, kind of stressful month.

"Stressful!?" you say?

Yes. Mainly from not having enough time to paint and post. I haven't even sent out my February E-news, which won't happen now; I'll have to skip it and just do March. Charlie here I've been saving for a rainy day when I might have time to post, if not to paint.

I have to admit I did have a profitable 2 1/2 weeks at the San Antonio Rodeo sketching quick portraits... for the 19th year (Oh my goodness I don't like adding that up - I feel old!) But now that's done and I can get back to what has become my ordinary life of ferrying my kids around to school activities, email, karate class, and painting when I have a spare couple of hours. And this weekend I have nothing on the schedule, which means... Studio-Time!! Yay!

(Either that or cleaning out the garage, which has become quite a mess since unloading all the Rodeo booth stuff...
Eh,...
No, the studio is calling!)

Meanwhile: here are progress shots of Charlie!

(Charlie is available unframed for a limited time. Framed, he will sell for $550 at the Bayou City Art Fest in Houston at the end of March.)

The primer underpainting, with the first applications of dark pastel.

 My primers are Golden (brand) Fine Pumice Gel with Golden Fluid Acrylic Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold added at about a 2/1 ratio. This is 2 to 3 layers of that gold primer, which gets darker on each application because it's slightly transparent. Followed with a layer of Art Spectrum (brand) Pastel Primer in the Terra Cotta color. This photo (above) shows also my initial layers of warm dark pastels, Girault #376, and a Terry Ludwig dark red.

Thanks for watching. Please share!

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Barley

"Barley"  (pastel, 6x6 inches)  sold

Another quick one for a quick day. Here and gone in a flash.

I've been feeling the pressures of life and the constraints of time weighing on me these last few days. I find that sometimes a good quote helps rearrange my perceptions of life and time in general.

Today I like this one by Paul Klee: "A single day is enough to make us a little larger."

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