Curtain Call

Okay now the last post might make sense, at least I hope it will :)

This was the other pastel demo I did for the Senior Center at Round Rock. I did work on it back in my studio and finished it today.

As you might notice from prior florals I have posted, I LOVE the red with orange over it, the paintings just glow!

I did most of this at the demo, I had not done the lower one third of the painting to any great degree, and that is what I just finished today.

I hope you like it, and thanks again Baca Center folk for having me there, it was a great few hours even though I was still a little fuzzy headed from this cold of mine.. Grr!

Curtain Call close up

Close up the painting..I decided to crop some of the main painting so you will see the way pastels can be used as a veiling technique. They are an opaque medium, however, if one uses a lighter pressure this veiling effect is glorious! Try it.

High Tide

This was one of the demos I did last Friday for the Senior Center in Round Rock. I had a bit of time after my first demo, so voila as they say in France..

They were an enthusiastic crowd, lots of feedback which was very nice, thanks guys!

The next post will be the first demo I did of flowers. Enjoy.

Oh I did come home and work on this a bit as well, I never finish a demo usually, and sometimes I never touch them again, but this one just screamed "finish me!"

Villa Patio, France

Here is a preliminary pastel I did one morning, while the others were in town sketching and painting. I was starting to get my cold at this time, and thought I would stay home, get some rest.

Anyway, this is how I did that, a relaxing morning pasteling. Very enjoyable.

This house was set out so that the main house (with three large bedrooms suites and 4 bathrooms) was seperated from this walkway to two other bedrooms and two bathrooms, very private.

The whole layout was extremely private for all 9 of us staying there, we all met in the kitchen every morning and in the evening we would congregate in the living room, for cocktails and just good fun! Of course our days were spent running around, we crammed a lot of painting and sightseeing into the 2.5 weeks we had there.

A wonderful time was had by all, even by the sickly ones like me.. ;(

French Lady

The garden at our villa was absolutely full of roses, they were wonderful! And this was one of the blooms.

I love (as you may know by now) to break the background into shapes, simplify them, so the actual leaves (as they were in this painting) become geometric shapes, to play against the organic pink rose.

A playful painting..

Old Fishing Boat, Cassis France

Cassis is a wonderful place for any artist, I love boats and reflections, so you can rely on the fact that these will be a feature on my blog in the near future.

This is another pastel on velour suede board.

Actually one of the ladies had a great idea when we were carting our pastels, shoved in our suitcases for the plane trip back home.

We took some of the plastic clear bags one displays prints in and other artwork, usually not pastels and used them to protect our clothes etc from the pastel dust.

They work for the transporting of the pastel, I would not recommend it as a way to store them in general though, at least not with velour or suede paper. The bags get a lot of the pastel image on the inside of them.

Still it worked marvelously for the transporting home on the plane, and for the most part, the pastels paintings were all fine, thanks Char.

Here Kitty Kitty

I know, it's another kitty picture, but what a cutie!

I actually did not take this photo, I was exploring the Wet Canvas site and found it in the reference photos. I had a very small scrap of paper one night and decided to sketch it out, another pastel on velour paper.

White Cliffs, Cassis France

This was done for memory, after a day at Cassis on the coast in France. This place is full of tourists, restaurants, boats and great charm .. a wonderful day trip for our nine artists.

We took our two cars, and traveled about 2 hours south on great tollroads . It was a long and very happy day for us all, although my cold was starting and Vicki's was well under way.

While in Cassis we took a boat trip around the five coves which are simply breathtaking to see.
These high white cliffs are all round each cove, the water is crystal clear torquoise and each cove was just wonderful.

My camera stopped working, very frustrating when I saw so many paintings in front of me, but when I got back to the villa, I did this one from my memory, it turned out to be very close to the real thing.

Guess the old brain worked after all, not too addled with red wine and my pending cold. hee hee.
By the way, my camera is fine, the card was full, goodness me Rae!! What next???

Eygalieres, France

Well here I am at last. I feel almost well again after my France art trip. It's been 7 weeks of this 'BUG' and it sure knocked me for a loop!

So here is the first of my French paintings.

The town in which we stayed (our villa was very nearby) was gorgeous. Charm personified.

I love the tell tale blue shutters in Provence, unlike Italy the colors in France are so much more sedate.

This building was in Eygalieres, an ancient medieval town which is now a tourist draw but still very charming, full of tiny little stores, great bakery and restaurants, we all had a ball everytime we went into town and got to know the locals very well, especially the bakery! :)

You Are Invited!!

Here is the official invite to our Group of Five Show in Georgetown.. Do try to drop by and see it, this is our first group show and I hope will be the start of many more to come.

A Group Of Five Show

Hi everyone, well I am back from France and our group show for the Group of Five in Georgetown here in Texas is up, thanks to three members of the group who hung my works and Vicki's while we were having croissants in Provence. (More on France later) ..





Unfortunately I caught a terrible cold over there and as a result I am still pretty weak, so did not make the opening to this show last Friday night. Here is Vicki standing between two of my paintings.





I will get more photos of the whole show on the blog very soon, when I myself can go and view it, I have heard we had some positive responses on the works, so if you can go along and see the show, it will be up for the month of June at Georgetown Library, Mezzanine level.


The other artists in the show are Vicki Brevell, Nancy Brown, Sue Nosler Gray and Susan Abston Wiley.