Drawn from life. I put the finishing touches on this one after I got home last night. I am content with the out come. Conte’ Crayons on Brown Canson Pastel Paper. 12×19″
Monthly Archives: December 2011
Making Lefse
It’s a Holiday tradition in my family to make Lefse. A Norwegian treat, made from potatoes, cream, flour, and “Oleo.” What is Oleo? Why, it’s butter. Lefse looks a tortilla, but has a more delicate texture and a potato flavor. Served, rolled up with butter and brown sugar or just about anything. Pictured here is my Daughter, Niece, and Mother. I’m behind the lens, as usual.
Reclining Male Figure (WIP)
My 50th post on this blog! As for the life drawing, I liked this pose very much. We might use it again and draw other angles. I lost a half hour, but managed to get the darks and lights. I will refine it with color. Pastel on Brown Paper.
Doodle 2
Here is another doodle, it has about the same theme. I figure I am going to keep doing this when I feel like it. Maybe someday the seed of an idea will come from it.
A Doodly Day
It felt like a doodly day for play. I took out my sketch book, some vine charcoal, and a kneadable eraser. Tucked my inner critic away, and let intuition rule day.
The vine charcoal is good for manipulating like paint. Applying it, smearing it, and erasing it. The kneadable eraser is like applying white paint. I went back and forth from dark to light, molding the image to what I saw, and where at any given moment. Then do it all over again, changing it and refining it. When it feels finished I spray it with fixative. What does it mean? Read into it, what you may. 😉
Female Nude Sitting (WIP)
I liked this pose better than last weeks. I used pastel pencils this time, I was able to get a more accurate line than the Conte’ Crayons at this scale. This is how much I got done with the live model. I want to go in and add the mid-range colors at home. Pastel on Brown Pastel Paper 11×17″
Male Figure’s Back
We had our model pose to draw his back. I would have liked his arm down, but others were trying to give him an action pose. I don’t think it worked so well. Maybe I’ll have to try putting something in his hand. It was held up by a pole for his comfort. I will let it simmer until I come up with an idea. I was pleased that I got it all drawn and shaded within the 1.5 hours that we usually have to work. Hard Pastel on Brown Canson Paper 19.5″ x 12.5″.
Apple and Grapes (WIP)
I fine tuned the shapes and put in almost all the details. Now, all that remains to do is the stems. Never again on canvas with pastel, even though it’s coming out okay. It’s just uses up more pastels. I am straying from the reason why I gave oil pastels a shot is because I want to make fluid marks. Still life doesn’t inspired that. Landscapes with energetic strokes was my plan, that will be next, after I have stems on my fruit.
Apple and Grapes (WIP)
I found my subjects in the fridge crisper. I made an underpainting of watercolor crayons, worked in with a brush, on this 5×7″ canvas board. I didn’t really want to use the canvas board because it’s so coarse, but it was the only thing I had that size.
I laid in the first layer of oil pastel. Worked it in with a paper stump, Since the canvas is coarse, it would be faster to paint it, but I’ve done that before. This is an experiment with oil pastel. I will ignore the stems for now.
The holes are filled now, the surface is very smooth. I used Neopastel, a harder oil pastel first. I haven’t gotten to the lights yet. The canvas surface worked better than I expected, it has the look of oil paint in person.
Yellow Rose (Final)
I made some shading adjustments in the bottom petals. Changed the shape of the petal to the far right to be more pleasing, eventhough that’s not how it looked. Adjusted the color in the background to be warmer, and not distract from the rose. Oil Pastels on 8×10″ hardboard.
TracyB.art 