Julie’s Painting a Day

“In the Shadow of Greatness”

7 7/8″ x 10 3/4″ pastel on sanded paper
matted, cherry wood frame

I’ve had the chance today to wrap up not one but TWO paintings in progress. It feels good to finally get them “to bed” - I sometimes have paintings sitting around for 6-8 months unfinished, and I wait for the inspiration I need to put on the finishing touches. This painting started out being about the sunlight on the field, then I realized half-way through that what I liked was the little tree standing in the shadow of the big one. So, my focus changed, and the composition fell into place for me.

“Beach Umbrellas”
16″ x 20″ pastel on sanded board

Back by popular demand (LOL)…actually someone had asked me to do a larger version of this beach scene (part of the original is my blog’s banner - the first version was about 8″ x 10″) a while back, and I finally got around to doing it. I have missed painting! But I’m hoping that I’m getting back in the groove-

“Tranquility on the Burma Road”

11″ x 14″ pastel on sanded board

(18″ x 21″ matted, brushed gold frame)

I have been busy with family matters for most of the past month or so, but do have some nice art-related news to report: My pastel landscape “Tranquility on the Burma Road” was selected as a Second Mini50 winner in the National Parks Service’s 2008 ‘Paint The Parks’ competition! The top 100 large paintings and the First Mini50 paintings will tour the nation over the next few years as a traveling exhibition. My painting features a scene of the Fire Island National Seashore. To view all the winners in this year’s competition, go to: www.paintamerica.org/painttheparks.html-

“Birches”

8 1/4″ x 8 1/2″ pastel on Wallis paper
(16″ x 16″ matted, cherry wood frame)

I had first painted these birches viewed from the ground up in late 2007, but finally got around to putting the finishing touches on the painting today! Kinda weird to be painting fall foliage in the spring, but that’s the way it goes.

I consider this more of a still life painting of birches than a landscape scene.

“Stones IV”

8″ x 8″ pastel on sanded board
(16″ x 16″ matted, pine wood frame)

Well I guess I’m starting up my love affair with rocks again. I just sold the last painting from my “Stones” series of last summer, and then got the urge to do another little study of pobbles (that’s what they call them in Cape Ann, MA, anyway). I pushed the colors on this one a bit, and it came out very warm and cheerful.

“Daniela”
pastel on sanded paper

OK, the plan was to post small paintings done daily on this blog, but as it turns out sometimes plans have to be changed. I DO paint almost every day, but don’t necessarily finish a small painting each day since I also work on larger pieces. That being the case today, I decided to post something different.

Two weeks ago I had the chance to take a one-day portrait workshop with Alain Picard, a fantastic portrait artist (and great painter in general!). In the past I had painted one painting of a group of people from a photo, and had drawn two figurative scenes from photos with colored pencil, but had never worked with a live model. Well, it’s a lot harder than you would think, and a lot less forgiving than landscapes or still life paintings in that the point is to capture as closely as possible the subject matter, without a lot of artistic license. In other words, you can’t cheat. I really enjoyed the experience, and think my first attempt came out OK (but of course judge that for yourself). And it always helps when you work with a gorgeous subject, which Daniela was!

“Cyclamen”

6″ x 6″ pastel on pumiced board
(12″ x 12″ matted, pine wood frame)

I have a little spring fever today since the weather has gotten warmer, so was in the mood to do a little study of flowers.

“Fall Rain”
6″ x 9″ pastel on pumiced board
(11″ x 14″ matted, gold leaf frame)

I love it when strange things happen. I have been laboring over this little painting and was about to give up and just chuck it out when I decided to really vent my frustration by scrubbing the pastel off with a vegetable brush and hot water as a last-minute purge. Well, to my surprise the ‘ghost’ that remained on the board was pretty much the impression I’d been aiming for all along, and with a few additional pastel strokes to bump up some areas, the end result was very successful! I may even decide to enter this little painting in a local show or two, to see if the audience agrees. Anyway, I was able to salvage something that I’d been pulling my hair out over and am satisfied with the end result (and that doesn’t happen with all my paintings).

“Bay View in April”
8 1/2″ x 8 1/2″ pastel on Wallis paper
(14″ x 14″ matted)

The weather’s getting warmer and I start to dream about being at the beach. Although the trees are still bare, there’s lots of beauty in their silhouettes and interesting stuff that washed up on the shore over the winter. This is one of my favorite bay views, with just a hint of the spring colors to come.

“Buoys”

5″ x 7″ pastel on pumiced board

This was painted quickly the other day from a reference photo, starting with a watercolor underpainting. The buoys hang off the front deck of my neighbor’s house on Fire Island; they were found on the beach and collected over the years so now they form a sort of skirt around the edge of the deck. Since the house is built on pilings about 4 feet off the ground, they hang against a dark backdrop of shadow which makes their colors stand out. I plan to do a larger and more detailed version of them as well.