Lessons in painting

First painting lesson with Michele Wells at Fulton Art House.  Got to work on blending without fingers.

 My first pastel since class without finger blending (just using pastels to blend into each other). I am trying to fix a bad habit (at least in the pastel world) but not sure if I am still over-blending even though I am not using my finger. Oh well. Last night it was just a yellow blob but tonight it's a daffodil. 

Today's lesson is "Seeing Value". Pick two colors and their shades & tints to create a painting. I didn't quite understand where we were going with the lesson so I chose total opposites - yellow and purple. Looking at this, it doesn't look too bad but don't look at the original photo...You wouldn't recognize it. LOL. I didn't make a bad choice of purple and yellow. In fact, it probably was a good choice because I might have been tempted to use green (for the grass) and some other color trying to match the photo. I'll have to practice this lesson at home before my next class. I also need to practice my drawing skills because if I don't get the line right (in this case, barn should have been wider and the roof line is wrong) I can't erase to make it better. P.S. this is painted on Selinnier LaCart 9x12.

I can't turn off the underlining no matter how many times I click the button above.

Behind on a lot of paintings

Pears on UArt 320 paper...I love it.

Strawberries on 5x7 Acrylic paper painted pink...too rough.

 Mask with glitter accents  5x7

Sunflowers on two 5x7 pastel papers (donated to Art Club Auction)

 Time on two 5x7 papers

A Walk in the Woods 9x12 on Canson MiTients

Giraffe

on 9x9 Acrylic paper

I think that gets all of them now.

My lastest painting

More paintings

Been a while since I've updated my painting

Took an online class by Johannes Vloothuis and painted...

Niagara Falls
12x9

Laguna Beach at Night

Laguna Beach at Night

and tried a watercolor of a rocky water fall

that I didn't like so I did it in a pastel painting since that's the medium I decided I wanted to do

 

 There are some things I like about each one but there are also things about each one that I don't.

Now some other paintings on the new Paint My Photo website

 

Autumn Skies
10x7
 http://pmp-art.com/bonnie-sitter/gallery/51769/autumn-splendor

Tulip
12x9
http://pmp-art.com/angela-calabrese/gallery/51774/tulip

Boy at Beach
5x7
 http://pmp-art.com/dana-critchlow/gallery/121669/child-reflection

big blue eyes
5x7
 http://pmp-art.com/jrmie-tholom/gallery/120094/looking-up

I have one more in progress, but I think I'll take these completed ones to the JCPS Faculty art show.

Boutineere on Piano keys in Pastel

I zoomed in and focused on the flower since it was for a Flower challenge.  I love how well the piano keys turned out.  So far this is my favorite painting (partly because of the piano).  It's on two Royal and Langnickel 5x7 pages taped together to create a 10x7 painting.

"I'm not impressed" paintings

Haven't posted in a while, but wanted to document my awful practice pastel paintings.  The first two were on sanded construction paper.  I have seen videos of pastelists painting on colored ground so I tried it out to see how I like it.  Not so sure I do.  Also, forgive the shadows of the tall grass - lawnmower won't cut and even if we could, ground is too wet anyway.

  This first painting isn't too bad, Moonlight http://pmp-art.com/john-warren/gallery/107400/moonlight

  Sunset in Dover  http://pmp-art.com/joyce-lapp/gallery/72211/sunset-in-dover

 Bougainvillea Flower by "Susan"

(can't find on new PMP site so giving credit to old PMP site)

 http://paintmyphoto.ning.com/photo/flower-475

This last one is two Royal & Langnickel papers taped together.  Not bad, but still not great.

Limited Palette Butterfly

Except for the blue, I used the same palette as before. Used a lighter, warmer, "sky blue" this time.

 Finally got it posted because I'm home today sick (flu or really bad cold not sure which).

Limited palette Dragonfly

There's a challenge to do a limited palette pastel painting 1 yellow, 1 red, 1 blue, 1 Earth color, and black/white if needed.  Here's my palette: (didn't use the purple in the kit)

 And here's the painting I created with it:

 It's so different trying to mix dry pigments directly on the paper instead of liquid colors in a tray to get it "just right" before applying it to paper. Because of that, my dragon fly is not a neon turquoise like the photo shows. This probably isn't the best challenge for me, a beginner, but I wanted to try it anyway.

Here's the original: http://paintmyphoto.ning.com/photo/dragon-fly-2-2

There's a few more photos I want to try limited palette with but not tonight.