LESSON #85 - Paint Day Lilies

[Happychappy]

   Nina for your encouragement and yes, we WILL conquer pastel painting!!
 
   Lynn, for such sweet comments.  I love people and to me, kindness and honesty is so easy. I always feel that unless you have walked in another man's shoes, you won't know what he has had to bear in his life and if you can make him happy in any small way then you have done a good deed.   Mark Twain wrote: "Kindness is the language that the deaf can hear and the blind can see" which to me is so profound and that is what I try and do.  Thank you so much for uplifting me too Lynn and for always being so encouraging .  Patricia

[Happychappy]

    Carol, a lovely painting and I was so tempted to do it in watercolours too.  I can't seem to let go of the watercolours, I guess it is because it was the first painting medium I had ever used.
 
Have you tried the nose guard?  Dennis showed us one that seems pretty good.  I have a couple and my daughter gave me some medical masks as well which do help for I too, seem to have lung trouble.  I have never smoked but grew up in a household of smokers which is just as bad or even worse, I believe.
 
Patricia

[Val]

Lovely Carol. Paint or pastel, medium makes no difference. You have made a beautiful painting. 

I have a respirator mask which I must wear when working with chemicals and heavy dust. My lungs were damaged when I worked in a factory to make money for my medical school tuition! Ironic eh?   

[May lynn]

Well my first foray into Pastels was a complete flop, but I'll do what Dennis always says I 'll keep
it for posterity and hopefully look back and laugh.  Tomorrow I'll try it again!! 

May lynn


p.s.   Does anyone know why the funny face icons won't come up.
         All I get is words.

[Val]

Leave a space between the typing and the icon.

[BeaSue]

Well! I must say that this first venture into pastels felt like treading water at the bottom of the learning curve. (Bad mixed metaphor--sorry!) I have very inexpensive pastels, so I think this is a disadvantage. Looking forward to Christmas when I hope I get some $$$ to buy some better ones.

Lessons learned:  I really do need to practice my flat washes for watercolor. What a mish-mash I made of the background. For me, wet-on-wet is much more forgiving.

I also discovered that, with my cheap pastels, the color/dust moved around so much after the first layer or so, and wouldn't grab the paper (Strathmore 400 Series). When I switched from a soft paintbrush to a tortillon I had more success, so will try this in the future.

I wasn't going to even post this, but--hey!--we're all friends here, and are all learning together, right? I am looking forward to the Small Stream.

Details

[Val]

Looks pretty fine to me Susan  I think you've got the blending going quite well so you should do great.

 

I've got my 12 and we'll just have to wait and see how far I can go.....should be fun, I have a feeling I'm going to be really stretching my creative artist's license!     

[Happychappy]

    Very nice Susan.  You did a thousand times better than me on my first try which just turned out to be one big mess. I was too ashamed to post it and re-did it.  I was going to cut it up and use the pieces for colour mixing but decided I should keep it intact, as a measure for my future progress .... a kind of "then" and "now" thing!!!  Should be hilarious.  Patricia 

[NHC50]

Nice job Susan. 

Nina

[Tousabella]

Well, this was fun.  I really liked this lesson, but was unsure about the dust and my lung problem.  I just poked along, and didn't move too much at a time. My desk and myself were really clean!!  I only got two fingers n a thumb a little dusty!!
I don't have any fixative yet, so will have to leave it out, but other than that, so far, so good.
The "added colors" on the bottom of the picture is some of my decorations...LOL.

Details

[Lillian]

Beautiful, Bella!       I'm glad you had no ill effects from the dust!

[dennis]

Really nice paintings Please do not worry about the differences in colour as it all depends on what pastels you have in your studio.

The most important issue is whether you have grasped the techniques.
In both these paintings you both have

[Tousabella]

Thank you Liiian. Really liked doing this.


Dennis, I thought this was great and so much fun.  I find that my Strathmore 140 doesn't seem to have a "good tooth", so will look for some different paper. I moved around the third layer, and it hardly stuck to the rest of it. I thought a fixative might be the problem, but I watched you last week, and you didn't spray yours til you were finished. So, it has to be the tooth of the paper.
Thanks, again.
Did you find out what's out of whack with your ankle?  Sure hope so...even to just have some answers for you.
Take care.

[Val]

Banner job Bella  I might just have to  have another go. 

[Steven]

Details

Fixed once not sure how much tooth this paper has left, I'm inclined to leave it loose like it is.  I think I like pastels!