18x12 pastel portrait

Back on my good computer, Thank God! (The other one is ok for traveling, backing up pictures and listening to Pandora Radio.) Went to Milwaukee Sketch Club last night. Spent first hour on draped side. Trying to get faster at doing portraits. I think that would be a good skill to have.

Florida Keys Pen Sketches 3 x 5.5

Visited 3 islands today; dolphin jump key, pretty joe rock and quiet cove key (see http://rentmyisland.com/ ) Nice waves today. Quite fun boat riding around. Hung out a little bit at pretty joe rock so sketched a piece of coral and waited out a short rain shower at quiet cove key so sketched part of the garden there.

Florida keys water color

In 5 x 7? sketchbook. Only 1 today.

Some Florida Keys Sketches

I got the great opportunity to go down to the Keys for a week so I went. I only brought pens, markers, watercolors and a white oil pastel to work with in small sketch books as I knew painting time would be limited. Here's a few sketches. I'm on a notebook computer that only has windows live photo gallery and I can't figure out how to edit the images to get rid of the keystone in that program. Also I can't figure out to make the image file size smaller than about 200kbs.

I won prisma color brush tip markers when Nora from Artist and Display came to the AC Art Association to show us new artist products. I really like these markers, you can blend them with white oil pastel to lighten or put them over the white oil pastel and smear to blend. The colors I have are kind of dark. Asked my sister for her green shade yellow highlighter to get the yellow green shade. These prisma markers work better than sharpies which bleed through the paper. Also experimenting with bright gel pens and colored zentangles version. I decided to do some sketching with ball point pen and I really love drawing fossilized coral. It has such interesting nooks and crannies. I wanted to create a slideshow using google but for some reason the google screen looks different and I can't figure out how to make the album public in order to share as a slide show. Why does google look different from my old apple computer on this pc? I figured I'd better post now as I probably won't have time when I get back. Tired. Going to bed now.

Angela 10/2/12

from Milwaukee Sketch Club sketching session.

pencil sketch of Wales Bank Building Now Mama D's 9/27/12

We got to meet Mama D. http://www.mamadscoffee.com/ She just opened this real cool sandwich and soup shop. Sounds real good. Next we go to Wales, I want to eat there. Started sketching Mama D's in pencil. about 6x12". Ran out of time, didn't finish. Still nice comfortable fall weather.

Fox River Waukesha 9/20/12 9x12 watercolor

Fell behind on painting and posting. Life got in the way. It was a beautiful day on the Fox River. Downtown Waukesha is one of my favorite places to paint.

Hart Park 9x12 pastel 7/28/12

Hart Park is one of my favorite places to paint. I love the stonework, the river, friendly people passing by. I had a good time painting with my friends in the Wisconsin Pastel Artists. http://wisconsinpastelartists.blogspot.com/2012/07/wisconsin-pastel-artists-plein-air.html
I did paint on Thursday with the Milwaukee Sketch Club but didn't finish as a storm rolled in and we didn't have shelter. http://milwaukeesketchclub.blogspot.com/2012/07/milwaukee-sketch-club-at-cutler-park.html

9x12 pastel Palmyra Beach 120719

I was following John from Eagle as we were driving to Rushing Rivers Trout Farm in Palmyra when John made a left turn off main st onto anemone st. We stopped at a small park with a beach because it looked like it was going to rain hard so we decided it would be good to sit under a park pavilion. It was overcast with a dark sky, windy and quite cool, 70s compared to the almost 100F weather we have been having. I actually felt cold since I'm acclimatized to summer right now. However, it never did rain so after one painting we went to Rushing Rivers to check it out.

Miniwaukan Park 9x12 pastel 7/12/12

Lot of artists out in the Mukwonago area due to the Fame Plein Air Event - Art in the Park. http://milwaukeesketchclub.blogspot.com/2012/07/fame-plein-air-event-in-mukwonago-art.html

Near Harley Davidson Museum 6/26/12

Quite fun. Bridge opened twice. boats. kayakers.....

Ran out of time. Didn't finish.









See photos at http://milwaukeesketchclub.blogspot.com/2012/07/milwaukee-sketch-club-at-harley.html

Lake Nagawicki 9x12 pastel 6/21/12

Bethesda Church 6/14/12

9x12 pastel

Marinette County Water Colors 6/8-6/9

8x5 Marinette Birches

12x9 Marinette Path

9x12 Marinette Woods

Flags near Waukesha Spring House 6/7/12

12x9 watercolor

trimborn farm 5/25/12

Near curtin house. Watercolor in 9x12 canson mixed media xl notebook.

Trimborn Farm Plein Air

9x12 watercolor, XL sketchbook

3 more pieces for ArtBar Exhibit May 18- June 13

See http://wisconsinpastelartists.blogspot.com/2012/05/wisconsin-pastel-artists-nature-walk-at.html for details. I painted these at Milwaukee Sketch Club.

Blondie

Island Girl

Red

Elegant Farmer Plein Air Sketches

Watercolor 9x12 Canson MixMedia 98lbs XL notebook

Pastel 9x12 mi-tientes paper

Started out cloudy, threatening rain but never did. Stormed in Waukesha. Never rained here. Sun came out at end.

Paper Cuttings Pictures from St. Johns

The kids at St. Johns did these. I really like them.

Nature Walk at ArtBar May 18 - June 13, 2012

Penny Lane 9x12 oil pastel on canvas paper

Cloud Tree 9x12 pastel on mis tientes paper

Here's 2 pieces that I'm putting in the Wisconsin Pastel Artists Spring 2012 Exhibition.

Both of these were painted en Plein Aire.

Nashotah House 9x12 Oil Pastel on Canson Acrylic paper

Today we went out plein air painting at Nashotah House. Very windy & brisk but sunny. I liked all the angles on the roof.

I like the Sennelier, Holbein, Van Gogh & Xonex oil pastels. Craypas I don't like as much as they are too waxy and hard to build up color before paper gets loaded up.

I like acrylic paper because it holds up when I scrape back in. I like to "prime" the paper with a white oil pastel otherwise sometimes it's hard to get back to a lighter color.

18x12 pastel portrait on charcoal paper

Amanda

Painted at Milwaukee Sketch Club 4/3/12.

Ended up talking quite a bit today rather than painting so didn't quite finish. I also re-drew the face once and the eyes 5 or 6 times. I have this great black eraser that erases pastel almost down to the paper, although sometimes I just wipe off the excess pastel with a cotton rag. I tend to use rags even for painting rather than paper towels.

The model asked me how I chose the colors I did and to tell you the truth I don't know. It's just that life and people are not just one color. She had very smooth skin so I blended the colors on her face. I like the headband.

24x18 Pastel Portrait on Vellum Bristol

Painted at Milwaukee Sketch Club 3/27/12. I always need to put down a rag to catch the pastel dust because I like to layer the colors.

Yasutomo Pearlescent Watercolors

My cousin told me about pearlescent water colors in a pan so I looked all over until I found this pan of 16 from Michaels. Then I played around with them in my 8 x 5.5 Strathmore mixed media - vellum finish, visual journal.

The colors don't appear to be staining. Could lift them easily. The strathmore paper let me scrub and lift without apparent distress to the paper. However, the page did wrinkle/curl as I like to let the paint react with water rather than painting precisely, so if I decide to take pages of the journal will have to try maybe ironing them to flatten them.

I painted these pictures from my imagination/ memory. I like how the finished painting sparkles which doesn't show up when I scan the pictures. It was hard getting things dark enough.

9x12 Pastel Tree near Elegant Farmer, Mukwonago

Some sketches from France

When I was in Paris last week I carried around a 3.5x5.5" sketchbook and watercolor sketchbook along with mechanical pencil, prange watercolors (only 1 brush!), 3 watercolor pencils, white charcoal pencil, small spray bottle and water container. Next time bring another brush for a friend. This kit was light and worked very well although I almost wish the prange watercolor set would hold 2 brushes and was half as long so it would fit in my pocket better. Both sketch books fit in my pocket of my cargo pants.

Chaumonte

Almost filled up the sketch book with quick pencil and ink sketches while riding the metro, bus, train and waiting in line or outside shops for my cousin. Only managed 5 watercolor / watercolor pencil sketches. My favorite park was Chaumonte. I enjoyed riding the metro and the Batobus boat. Bercy Village was nice too. My cousin's daughter enjoyed using my prange watercolors and did some beautiful paintings too. My cousin left 2 sketches in my sketchbook.

Chaumonte

Louise Sq

Luxembourg Parc

Bercy Quai