Pastel Winter

Today was my 2nd class with Ron Burgess pastel artist.  I haven't finished with winter - I could still use a little longer enjoying the cold, wind and hoping for a little more snow.  So, I still felt I wanted to spend a bit more time painting winter.  This is from a photo I took along one of the back roads on a snowy day in Collinsville, a winter sunset.  It is a challenge trying to get used to this new medium.  Watercolors are so natural for me to get the effect I want.  Painting with pastels I'm all thumbs.  It's good to be reminded what it is like to be a learner.

Burr School

Now that we are moved into our new home and my studio is all set up, it was nice to have a painting project to try out painting in my new space.  My art table is right in front of a north window that gives great lighting and the room is very cozy.  My grand daughter's pre-school is having a Spring fundraiser so I decided to donate a painting.  It was her teacher's idea to paint the historical Chicago school building, Burr School that is home to the pre-school, and elementary classes as well.  I've always wanted to paint a school bus, this was my chance.  In the photos I took last week there was a nice yellow school bus waiting for the children as parents were beginning to pick up their children.  There had been a lot of snow a few days before, so I kept it a winter scene.

Antique Oval Frame Floral re-worked

A dear friend gave me a lovely antique oval frame several years ago and I immediately painted a floral water color that hung in my mother in law's bedroom.  When we moved, I carefully packed the oval frame and curved glass and knew that I wanted to rework the painting once I had the time.  My studio is now unpacked and ready, so today I enjoyed adding more digitalis and making the painting a little softer. It's now hung in it's new home, the guest room.

Pastel Painting Baby Steps

It's been several weeks since I've painted and posted.  The move is behind us, my studio is nearly set up so today I began a pastel class with my Mom at her senior residence.  A wonderful artist, Ron Burgess, comes twice a month to give pastel instruction and now that we're living here it will be fun to paint along side my mom.

I'm discovering that painting with pastels is the reverse of painting with watercolors.  You paint the darks first and then the lights layering the colors.  After painting this winter scene I decided I could get into this very easily!

Happy Birthday Jesus

We are moved and well on our way to being settled into our new home.  I'm so grateful we can celebrate Christmas dinner, here in our home with some of our family.  I created this card for the Gateway East Artist Guild Christmas card contest and it is sitting in my bottle brush creche.  It says it all for me this Joyous Christmas morning ....

A "Moving" Abstract!

My studio has been reduced to labeled cardboard boxes waiting to be transported this weekend on the U-Haul.    We should get possession of our new home on December 17th and as soon as I can, I'll unpack the boxes and work at organizing my new studio that is greatly reduced in size from what I've enjoyed here in this home.  It's good to have to go through and clean out what is superfluous and realizing that what I thought I couldn't part with, I actually could.  I look forward to a new beginning in my art along with our new life in new surroundings and discovering a new art world.

My last evening with the Gateway East Artist Guild in Belleville, Il, that has been a big part of my life for 9 years, was very special.  It was the annual Christmas Party,  My friends totally surprised me with a lovely framed collage of photos of the guild members and messages written on the matt that will hang in a special spot in my new studio.  I was also very surprised that that I was awarded with the Artist of the Year plaque. It was a great way to say good bye.

The house is all packed, so I had time to create a useful work of "art" - a layout of our new home, with scale to size pieces of paper that represent our furniture.  Hopefully this will make moving in easier!

"Moving" Art

Finally our house is sold and we have bought our retirement home and we're in the process of packing.  Going from a pretty large home to one that is half the square footage is a challenge and it's forcing us to downsize in a serious way!  It would be a lot easier to move if I didn't have so many watercolor and porcelain art supplies as well as all the paintings and hand painted porcelain.  No time for watercolors these days.  My art consists of packing and color coding the boxes to organize the move.  At least Duct tapes comes in a lovely palette of colors!