Prickly Blue

I've never seen and artichoke flower, but when I saw this, I knew I had to paint it!  Soft pastels can really capture the vibrancy of a specimen.  I felt challenged and intrigued to decide which colors to include to emphasize the unique color and texture of  this blue artichoke flower.  I worked small at 5 x 7" and started with bright pink acid-free card stock coated with pastel medium.  I worked with mostly extra soft Sennelier pastels - a bit challenging working so small, but they really can lay down luscious pigment - just what I like.

So, not only are the fruits of the artichoke lovely and delicious, the flower is delightful too.

Simply Pink

Painting flowers is always fun - especially when they're as cheerful as this one.  The pink on neutral, dark background really makes this one pop.  Soft pastels worked nicely for this little 5 x 7" piece.  It looks great framed in a contemporary black frame with double mattes of black and white.

Farms, Farms and More Farms

Farm I, 12 x 6"

Farm III, 9 x 12"

In early May this year our family made a long drive from Oklahoma to Michigan to attend a wedding.  Anytime I travel, I like to take my camera so that I can snap scenes that might inspire a painting or two.  The dominant theme of this drive was farms.  Of course, we were after all driving through the heartland!

Earlier I had done some practice pieces in pastel and so I thought it would be fun to distill a few of those scenes down to their geometric simplicity and represent them in a funky, colorful way, this time with acrylics.   Each of these three, small cradled panels were designed to be a pop representation of these farms.

The Spring weather created bright, clear skies during the sojourn. I had fun snapping dozens of photos, and then cropping them down to an abstract level.  Using bright, unreal colors in some of the pieces made for a really fun little project.

Farm II, 6 x 12"

Burst of Summer

Working with pastels has been a joy and has reinvigorated my creative spirit.  These summer-themed, abstracted florals were just what I needed to motivate me to paint more.  As much as I enjoyed doing the smaller pieces, their success impelled me to try a much larger piece.  I have to say that working this size - much larger - was very freeing and lent itself to abstraction.  "Burst of Summer" is pastel on 18.5 x 26.6" sanded paper.

WHITE BARN - EXERCISE IN 20 STROKES

Here's a continuation of the counting strokes exercise and creating a work in as few strokes as possible.  This one was done in 20 strokes.  4 x 7" pastel.  The foreground grasses are actually one long connected stroke.

RED BARN

Deborah Secor, a wonderful artist issued a challenge over in the Pastel Forum at Wetcanvas.com.  "How LOW can you go?"  In other words, try to create a painting with as few strokes as possible.  I took the challenge tonight with a little 4 x 6" piece of blue paper, a simple farm scene, somewhat abstracted and tried my hand at aiming for as few strokes as possible.

So, how many strokes do you think it took for this painting?  Too many!  80 or thereabout.  A good exercise and worthy challenge.