Green Pear

Here's the second pear for my kitchen series.  This was in the same painting as the previous yellow pear.  I didn't like how the entire painting came out, but I liked the pears so I just cut them out and tossed the rest.  It was bitter sweet throwing out the rest of the painting - a lot of time was spent on trying to make it right, not to mention the amount of pastels wasted.  I didn't think to take a picture of it before I took the scissors to it - that's something I will remember to do if it ever happens again - which I'm sure it will. 

Painting for the kitchen

I've been looking at my kitchen lately and wandering what I could do to spruce it up a little.  I've been trying for a Tuscan theme throughout the house and have fake pears, vines and wine bottles decorating the tops of the kitchen cabinets, but under the cabinets has always looked bare to me - so I decided to do some pear paintings to frame and hand under the cabinets.  This is the first one, and actually It was part of a large painting that I just wasn't happy with as a whole, but I liked how the pear turned out, so I cut the painting down to size. There is actually a second pear from this painting that I will share tomorrow.  2 down, 3 more to go. 

Yesterday I posted "No Name Monday"  and it seemed to be a difficult painting to title.  Coming up with a title is not always an easy task, but one title that was submitted was Seaside Dining - we could work with this - because the painting is of an island, and not the sea, I just changed to location to Island Dining. Many thanks to  Pam for the idea!  I can't thank you all enough for taking part in No Name Monday's.  I really look forward to seeing all the ideas, and love involving others in my art making. The painting is now listed on my Etsy store website.

Today I've started a painting of a field of sunflowers - and I'm really battling a terrible sinus infection, so I keep getting side tracked with a lot of nose blowing and trying to unclog these ears, but hopefully I can finish it this evening to stay on track with a painting a day.

No Name Monday

Island Dining pastel 12x18 available $85.00

Today's No Name painting comes from a reference photo I took at Assateague National Seashore.  I was so lucky that day to catch so many shore birds in one location.  They don't show up very well in this photo, so here's an enlarged photo:

Now if she only had a name.  It's been so exciting for me to see all the different titles submitted by everyone - can't wait to see what comes today. 

Experiment

I wanted to try out the pastels on plain matboard with no gesso - I guess it can be done, but I don't really care for the texture showing through, and I just couldn't seem to fill in the holes no matter how many layers I applied.  It was a lesson learned.  This photo was taken from my dining room window.  The birds seem to love resting on this small row of fence. 

Painting the Scriptures

Psalm 1:3 pastel 12x9 available $45.00

This is my second painting in my Painting the Scriptures series.  I'm choosing verses from the Bible to paint.  Psalm is one of my favorite books of the Bible and I love painting trees, so Psalm 1:3 was the perfect verse for me this week.  I did this painting entirely with my new Sennlier pastels which is a first for me to only use the softest pastels and none of the hard or medium. Doing this really helped me learn to use a softer touch when applying the pastels - which is something I've really been trying to work on. 

Painting Title Chosen

                                             Spring Surprise 6x6 pastel available $15.00 Sold

Many thanks to all those that participated in this weeks "No Name Monday".  It was such a difficult choice!  Monday's painting has been named "Bewilder Me Blue".  It was such a catchy name.  Thank you Debbie!

Above is a painting I did plein air.  This single tulip comes up every year at the edge of our woods.  Nobody knows how it got there, but it's so beautiful and huge! It's become quite an event in my house waiting for this tulip to open every spring. 

Well after quite a crappy weekend, yesterday I had a surprise filled day.  First, I received a delivery.

Two packs of UArt pastel paper, Sennlier pastels (yippee!) and The Pastel Book by Bill Creevy, which I've read in other artist's blogs that this is the book to have. I couldn't wait to test out the new pastels, so I spent yesterday playing with them - and let me just say they are like painting with a stick of butter!  Then, later in the afternoon, one of my favorite pastel artists Rita Kirkman started following me on Instagram!  Love her work - she does amazing paintings of farm animals and she inspires me to push the limits of color.  Look her up - -  you just can't help yourself but to smile when you see her animal portraits.

No Name Monday

Bewilder Me Blue 6x6 pastel available $15.00 Sold

Truth be told, this Easter was nothing short of disappointing.  I might even go as far as to say depressing - but the weather was perfect and I was in desperate need of some quiet "alone" time. So I sat down at our picnic table with my pastels and just started to paint. No music, no conversation, just the peacefulness of outdoor sounds. I had bought a container of African Daisies the day before and had them sitting in the center of the picnic table, I just painted what was in front of me. 

Last week I introduced "No Name Mondays" to the blog.  So here is this week's "No Name" painting.  Comment what name you would choose for this painting, and in 24 hours I will post the winner and officially name this painting.  I can't wait to see what ideas you have.