Setting Aside Time Just to Draw

The Boathouse 16x20 Charcoal on Canson Board available $165.00

 I've heard it said that to be a good artist, you must be good at drawing.  I have to admit, when I was young, I loved to draw, and it was my favorite past time, but now I don't spend nearly the amount of time on the drawing for each painting as I probably should.  It had been quite some time since I completed just a charcoal drawing, but it felt good - it took me back to a time before color, before paints and before pastels.  I have always wanted to fill a sketchbook, but have never spent the time, so today I am setting another goal and that is to do at least 1 sketch a week until a sketch book is completely full. I enjoy looking through other's sketchbooks, and hopefully I will find as much satisfaction looking through my own.   I'm including some step by step photos of this piece - it's fun to see a picture slowly come to life. I used black and white charcoal on gray toned Canson Board.  The texture on this board took some getting used to, but I'm happy with the end results. 

Keeping Things Loose in the Background

Lost 12x18 Pastel available $185.00

I've been practicing abstracting backgrounds with my latest poppy paintings.  Putting in grasses like the one above can get frustrating and confusing and sometimes cause you to over paint them causing the pastels to get gummy and muddy which leaves you no choice but to brush it off and begin again - and when you're on a tight budget for purchasing pastels, this can also be pricey.  So this time I worked very slow - I began by toning the paper in a deep purple and made sure I could still see the paper through the pastel.  Then I chose 2 greens to lightly fill in area followed by the light yellowy green to give the appearance of light shining through.  It wasn't until this point that I put in the poppy, stepped back from the easel and chose colors that I thought would give interest and make the painting pop.  I followed the same color choices with this poppy as the others, but added a bit of a warm pink color in the light filled area.  The goal is to not paint every blade of grass, but let the viewer fill in the grasses with the information you present to them to see.  

I'd like to reveal the rest of the poem that I've been sharing.  I'd love to hear your thoughts about it.

Jennifer Grotz’s “Poppies”

There is a sadness everywhere present
but impossible to point to, a sadness that hides in the world
and lingers. You look for it because it is everywhere.
When you give up, it haunts your dreams
with black pepper and blood and when you wake
you don’t know where you are.
But then you see the poppies, a disheveled stand of them.
And the sun shining down like God, loving all of us equally,
mountain and valley, plant, animal, human, and therefore
shouldn’t we love all things equally back?
And then you see the clouds.
The poppies are wild, they are only beautiful and tall
so long as you do not cut them,
they are like the feral cat who purrs and rubs against your leg
but will scratch you if you touch back.
Love is letting the world be half-tamed.
That’s how the rain comes, softly and attentively, then
with unstoppable force. If you
stare upwards as it falls, you will see
they are falling sparks that light nothing only because
the ground interrupts them. You can hear the way they’d burn,
the smoldering sound they make falling into the grass.
That is a sound for the sadness everywhere present.
The closest you have come to seeing it
is at night, with the window open and the lamp on,
when the moths perch on the white walls,
tiny as a fingernail to large as a Gerbera daisy
and take turns agitating around the light.
If you grasp one by the wing,
its pill-sized body will convulse
in your closed palm and you can feel the wing beats
like an eyelid’s obsessive blinking open to see.
But now it is still light and the blackbirds are singing
as if their voices are the only scissors left in this world.

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I've been thinking of  my next subject matter to work on this week, and I've decided to spend my week at the lake - so to speak.  This week, all my painting will be lake scenes.  I'm pretty excited and have some experiments with the pastels that I'd like to try out along the way.


I'd also like to announce with great joy that I was excepted into the Working Artists Forum.  I was quite worried after seeing all the paintings of the other applicants - all I can say is I'm in very good company of exceptional artists and hope to build lasting friendships and also to learn and grow as an artist with all the opportunities WAF provides.  Thank you all for your words of encouragement and prayers. 

Have You Ever Tried Painting on Sandpaper?

Wild Passions 9x11 Pastel available $95.00

This week has been a whirlwind of art activity in this house.  Along with trying to reach my goal for the poppy paintings, I've also been working on things in an attempt to get accepted into the Working Artists Forum group.  On Monday, I will need to submit 3 paintings and 1 drawing, framed, to be judged by a panel, and they will decide if they think my work is up to the standards of the group.  I am so grateful for all of you that "like" the paintings on Facebook and Instagram because that's how I chose the paintings for consideration.  I also met with my pastel mentor Katie yesterday, and along with her husband, who is also an artist, they helped me pick the best 3 of the 9 top "liked" paintings by all of you. So thank you for all your support and wish me luck.  I'll post the paintings that were picked after I get them framed.

I've been sharing a poem 1 paragraph at a time along with a poppy painting to go along with it, so I'd like to share the next paragraph to that poem:


There is a sadness everywhere present
but impossible to point to, a sadness that hides in the world
and lingers. You look for it because it is everywhere.
When you give up, it haunts your dreams
with black pepper and blood and when you wake
you don’t know where you are.

But then you see the poppies, a disheveled stand of them.
And the sun shining down like God, loving all of us equally,
mountain and valley, plant, animal, human, and therefore
shouldn’t we love all things equally back?
And then you see the clouds.

The poppies are wild, they are only beautiful and tall
so long as you do not cut them,
they are like the feral cat who purrs and rubs against your leg
but will scratch you if you touch back.
Love is letting the world be half-tamed.
That’s how the rain comes, softly and attentively, then

with unstoppable force. If you
stare upwards as it falls, you will see
they are falling sparks that light nothing only because
the ground interrupts them. You can hear the way they’d burn,
the smoldering sound they make falling into the grass.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The poppy painting posted for today was painted on black sandpaper.  I've been trying out different grits of sandpaper to see what kind of textures I can achieve - but just a warning if you decide to try this - you will not have a pastel left when using them on the heavier grit paper - I liked the texture, but did not like using up an entire pastel after a couple of swipes, so I trashed that painting - and began again for the painting shown above.