Yessy.com..OK bear with me..it's long and no pictures

I think I mentioned that I was going to do a small workshop on selling your artwork online at the Lakewood Arts Council's Community Art Center & Gallery later in the spring. So I have been checking out different sites for selling artwork.

I thought I would share what I have learned and where I have sold so far. I am actually learning alot by reading the forums and seeing what other artists have to say.

All of the online market places where I sell can be found by clicking on the right sidebar (or here) "Every Place I Sell". This is a nice, easy to use, e-signpost that you can send potential customers to. Take a look at mine and you will see you can click on the different marketplaces as well as see what sort of payment is accepted.

I uploaded several images at Imagekind a few days ago, which I understand is run by Cafe Press. Imagekind is for on-demand prints of your artwork, which is a nice service because I don't have the time or energy to figure out how to produce quality prints and would probably end up having to wallpaper my garage with the leftovers.
However, there is no way, that I can tell, to easily see who looks at your work or which images might be the most popular. There is a section where other Imagekind users can label you as a favorite, but I'm addicted to the "number of hits" information that I get from Etsy or Bonanzle. I also didn't care for their payment to the seller. They pay at the end of the month in which you have accumulated $50 or more in sales. While reading the forums I ran across another site, Artist Rising.

I uploaded a few images to Artist Rising but seemed to have difficulty doing so...easily. Quick and easy set-up is important for me as I don't have much time with all these sites and trying to learn on the run. So I don't have much more to say about this site, yet.....except you can sell original art or prints. One more option than Imagekind. While reading the forums at Artist Rising trying to figure out whether correcting my mistakes and continuing set-up would be worth it, I ran across someone talking about Yessy.

As you might know I started all of this with my Littleton Studio shop at Etsy back in September. Yessy, so far, is the closest to my lovely Etsy experience, only it is just for original art (no vintage, or supplies). It is an escrow site for artists and buyers which gives you the exposure and takes the headache out of dealing with payments. You are paid by Yessy once the buyer receives your artwork.

In their FAQ's they say if it can hang in a gallery it can be sold on Yessy, which means I can also sell my fiber art including cards and gift boxes. There are great statistics to help you see what traffic is coming into your gallery and what pieces of your artwork are most popular. I had good traffic from all over the world last night and this morning, we'll see about traffic in a couple of days after my name comes off the front page as a new gallery. The set-up was uber-easy and you are able to try a 14-day free trial period. If you don't cancel your gallery before the 14 days is up you are charged $59.00 for the year. You are also able to see what artwork is selling by using the category search on the lower left sidebar. The categories are straightforward and the sight looks very clean. It's hard to get lost, some of the other sites I felt like I was in a maze. Check out my main gallery, Littleton Studio, and on the upper right sidebar you can see I have a Fine Art-Dry Media gallery, and a Fiber Art gallery.

Another site I tried is ArtbyUs, an auction site for your artwork. Awhile back I said I didn't like the auction environment for my artwork, but I thought I would try. So far, I have no bids on an art quilt and a miniature colored pencil piece. I just found where the "views" are and they are pretty modest compared to Yessy. Browsing through the site I see LOTS of artwork in the auctions with 0 bids. I don't have high hopes, or even low hopes for this site.

So far, I have only sold artwork on Etsy in my Littleton Studio. I sold a pastel painting, several quilts, several fiber art pieces and handmade greeting cards. Ten pieces in all in the last 4 mos.

One thing I do know, is that you cannot set up a marketplace and just expect someone to find you. You must drive your own traffic to the sites and promote yourself just like you were in a brick and mortar gallery. There is really no way around that.

If you have any thoughts or experiences with any of these sites: Etsy, Imagekind, Yessy, Artist Rising, or ArtbyUs please feel free to leave a comment. I'm interested in ease of set-up, being able to see statistics, layout of site, and sales if any.

Prints Available Now at Imagekind

I've just uploaded several of my colored pencil pieces to Imagekind. They are now available for note cards, prints and canvases.

Imagekind allows you to choose the size of print or canvas you would like to order. You can also choose framing.

I will be loading more artwork over the next week or so.

Tea & Sympathy, colored pencil

String Theory, colored pencil

Pears & Cherries, colored pencil

My Experiment with Auctioning Artwork

I am experimenting with a new online marketplace, ArtByUs, that is solely for artwork.

This miniature piece, Blue Cup & Peaches, is currently being auctioned in my gallery, Littleton Studio. The minimum bid is $35.00. I do have a reserve set but if you mention that you saw it auctioned on my art blog, Color On! I will waive the reserve. You can "buy it now" for $55, or you can start the bidding at $35.

SOLD Blue Cup & Peaches, colored pencil on Stonehenge paper 2.5" x 3" miniature.

I will be giving a talk in May at the Lakewood Arts Council's Community Art Center & Gallery (LAC) about online market places and ways to sell your art online. So I am trying lots of different venues to see how they work and what audiences they attract.

The first week in January I will be publishing a new blog, LAC President's Blog, to provide the latest information on what's happening at LAC and showcase our talented co-op artists. I will be serving as President of the LAC Board for 2009 and the new blog is part of my goal to gain exposure for LAC. I hope it will be widely read.

I decided to accept the position as President because I have gained so much from the LAC organization and the people involved. As a brand new artist 5 years ago I was able to gain so much confidence and exposure that I hope to do the same for others. LAC is, however, so much more than visual arts...performing arts, literary arts, community events, partnership with other organizations, etc. I hope you'll check out the new blog in January and you may be inspired to start a community arts organization in your area. It's the best!

New Home for Two Pears

What a good day yesterday! My Lollishops and Etsy shops are beginning to take off, and I had a lovely surprise....sold "Two Pears" to an Australian buyer.

I have taken the month of December off from my pastel classes, just too much to do. I think we are going to start up again in January on Saturdays, which will work much better for me. If I don't like to go out at night, does that make me an old lady??? Plus, sometimes on Wednesday nights my little Opal comes over to play...and I can't miss that!

Here's a pic of my girl taken a few months ago in her play high heels. She is just like her Mommy in that she loves shoes...ballet shoes, tap shoes, Ugg boots, pink Princess boots, tennis shoes, patent leather shoes...and on it goes!

Christmas Eve is shaping up to be one terrific night of family, so keep good thoughts for no snow.

I'd go for a dry "HO,HO,HO"!!

A Little Non-Art Announcement

After I opened Littleton Studio, my first Etsy shop where I sell my fine art and fiber art, and then my second Etsy shop, Littleton Outlet, where I am de-stashing my fiber and art supplies, I noticed a lot of "vintage" items being sold on Etsy. So I have now opened Corn Street Vintage where I sell my vintage finds, and established my Corn Street Vintage blog.

The bug has bitten me! I won't give up my art, but I've found something equally as fun. Stop by and take a peek!

"Seen My Specs?" or "Mr. Pearhead"

Well, I decided after the pumpkins I wanted to do something really silly. Mr. Potato Head would be too obvious so I am going for Mr. Pearhead. I thought I would share the very beginnings right from the set-up to initial sketch. The drawing will be refined as I go.

I spent alot of time trying to get this arrangement set up so that the composition lead to the right side of the picture plane, and that the right side ended properly.

My pastel instructor, Deb, has been working along side us for the last couple of classes. It's very helpful to see how she starts and progresses through the piece.

It will focus more on color than the really dark shadows (ala "Pumpkins"), but still revealing form through light and shadow.
Picture of set-up at a distance.

Picture of set-up closer to size of drawing.

Initial Sketch with green pastel pencil and laying in beginning values with black and gray Nu-Pastel. This piece is about 12" x 16" on Wallis sanded paper.

Back After Two Weeks

"Three Pumpkins and Unintentionally Detached Stem" 12" x 16" Pastels on Sanded Board
(Now available for sale on my Etsy shop Littleton Studio)

I haven't been able to get any drawing done, and I even missed my much-loved class for two weeks. Had a bout with the flu (even after my flu shot!).

Last night I made it to class and finished my pumpkin painting. It felt so good to feel good and paint....and to throw that stupid stem away that's been in my trunk for about a month. :-)



I was out of practice standing at the easel, and I see I have some of my lights and darks confused but all in all it's the first piece that I could frame coming out of my class work.

I've also had a little time to work on this piece "Pot, Pepper and Onions" in colored pencil. I'm having trouble getting enthused about this when I see what rich colors I can get with pastels, but I will finish it.

Pumpkins!

Pumpkins 11" x 14" pastels on Ampersand Pastelbord

This has been my class project for the last 2 weeks....and I will be finishing it up next week. There are some areas I need to brush off as the pastel got too thick on the sanded board.

Again the object of the exercise is to utilize light and shadow to reveal the form. I need to fix my pumpkin sections on the large pumpkin...the creases don't really get that dark.

I did the drawing with NuPastels (they are hard and you can use them more like a drawing instrument than the chunky pastels.

The really cool dried stem WAS attached to the pumpkin when I picked it out in the produce section, but my helful checkout person ripped it off for me! I couldn't get "Stop" out fast enough. She thought I was making a pumpkin pie...ha! Little does she know, cooking a pumpkin pie for me is preheating the oven and opening a Sara Lee box. I've been known to screw that up!
But I got the stem in there and I quite like what it adds to the design.

Next week I will post the finished piece.

Starting to Lay in Colors

Moving on to the onions and pepper...will come back and adjust any values and make any corrections in color at the end.

Background In - Pepper and Onions

I'm not sure why this is photographing soooo blurry today....could be the camera or it could be the light or maybe toooo much coffee this morning.

The background and foreground are finished for now, and it's time to focus on the onions and pepper. I'll save the pot for last.

More work on the Pot, Onions and Pepper

I've done a bit more work on this, at last posting I was going to start the cps, but since I am working on a mid-value sanded board I wanted to lay in some of the highlights and get them really bright for a little more drama.

I used Inktense for the darks, but I don't have a light enough Inktense for highlights, so I mixed a little yellow and white acrylic...watered it down...and used it for the highlights. Worked pretty well, and since it's not a legal product for the CPSA International Exhibit, it can now be entered into the ET!5 exhibit....deadline coming up Nov 15th!!!

Now I'm ready for cps.......

At Last! Some Colored Pencil - WIP

Pepper, Pot and Onions 8" x 10" Underpainting in Inktense on Ampersand (sand colored).....

Resource photo taken in my lovely little black box....

It's time to apply some of what I have learned in my pastel class about the Light and Shadow concept to my colored pencil work. I have used Dark Green, Ink Black, Indigo Blue and Bark to do my underpainting. The water has been applied to the Inktense, and now I'm ready to do some lights in Inktense.

I am changing the background a bit to add some interest. Instead of being all black it will have some "in the light" values on the right side.

Class Exercise - Pot, Pepper and Onions

Pot, Pepper and Onions.....11 x 14 Pastel on Wallis Belgian Mist Sanded Paper

This one is just about done, I need to tweak a few things, the middle onion is too red, and the background and foreground need a little work. I'll be doing that at home

I will be starting a new project in class next week. What I learned last night is that for me to draw (which I do), I need to have a harder pastel that keeps an edge. I used NuPastel last night which is a very hard pastel made by Prismacolor and was very pleased at what I could do with them. I will be using the NuPastel for my drawing and first layers and then follow up with my very soft Ludwigs.

One of the things we talked about last night, continuing on the Light and Shadow painting concept, was that not everything has to be detailed. Coming from a colored pencil background I have a tendency to render everything at the same level. Deb talked about detailing either the lights or the shadows but not necessarily both. So as I finished up this painting, I thought about detailing the light not the shadow. So, for instance, you can see the dark bottom of the green pepper runs into the cast shadow, but your eye fills in the information.

We're starting to talk about edges...hard and soft....but Deb describes them as pathways. You can open up a pathway by using a soft edge and keep the attention in another part of the painting by using a hard edge. She also uses the word "magic" alot....which I love!

My homework project for this next week is to start a colored pencil piece based on what I have learned in the pastel class so far. Here is the photo I took yesterday to use as a reference. In the pastel class we work from life, but my pepper would be dead and the onions a little crisp if I didn't use a photo reference for colored pencil work....it's soooooo slow.

5th Week of Pastel Class

Setup - It always amazes me how lackluster a photo can be. The setup in the studio was full of reflected light and pizzazz. I guess that's why I'm an artist and not a photographer. I'm never able to capture the pizzazz in a photo. This really was like building a theater set, which is Deb's background. I'm really enjoying learning how to do this.

This is 11" x 14" on Belgian Mist Wallis sanded paper. The black is a combo of NuPastel and black Rembrandt pastels. These are harder than the Ludwigs that I usually use.

Constructing the Darks - What I have "constructed" is the core shadows and the cast shadows. I have seen artists write books about this but never quite understood it. It gives a whole new meaning to thumbnail sketches. In a thumbnail you are trying to see if the darks make a good design. If I had been doing thumbnail sketches on this group of objects, I could now move them around and do another "constructing the darks" and decide which design was more pleasing.

Laying in the Lights - My pot went a little wonkie, but is fixable. This is only the first layers of lights. What is left now (for next week's class) is to continue to layer and refine colors and shapes. My values on the lights of the onions is a little dark but I should be able to fix this as well.

Observations:

- In this method of painting, things are either in the light or the dark. Even though the background is black (see setup pic), the right side is in the light and therefore is not really a dark. Big lightbulb moment!!

- More time spent during the setup results in alot less uncertainty when you start painting.

- There are probably more observations but they are still floating around in the gray matter in my brain this morning.

Thanks for following my adventure!

Week 4 - Designing Darks

Ay-yi-yi........week 4 was about designing darks....not when you are drawing, but when you are doing the set up. It sounds so easy, but in practice something I need to really think hard about when I'm in the middle of it.

So this week's artwork looks woefully sparse but the learning was more in the setup. The idea is to have the light travel from the left to the right and create your focal point in the Golden Mean.

The Golden Mean is a math principle which is found everywhere in nature, and rather than me butcher it completely, check out Wikipedia's definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio

What does this all mean for an artist? It means that if you divide your picture plane into thirds, your focal point should fall somewhere a little less than 2/3's of the way across your plane. Based on the principles of the Golden Mean it is an ever-present ratio found in our bodies, in seashells, etc. Therefore, it is a pleasing aesthetic to our eyes as a viewer of artwork.

The focal point is where you should find your sharpest edges, your lightest lights and your darkest darks. So in my exercise above the jar falls vertically along the Golden Mean (approximately), and the lights and darks should be more intense in that area.

A couple of things I learned:

- Do not set up a still life with a piece of glass when you have a short time to draw.

- Use a harder pastel, like NuPastel, to get your darks down. The sanded paper eats up your really wonderful soft Ludwigs. Save those for the top layers.

- Creating masterpieces in a classroom setting just doesn't happen.

- You can never learn too much about art.

Cross your fingers that I survive week 5. We are working on a completed piece.

Week Number Three of Pastel Class

Last week we had a couple of new folks making for a very lively group of six. Deb asked us to set up a still life and then we discussed how a painting can be more dynamic if the painting reads from left to right with the focal point/center of interest being on the right side (preferrably in the Golden Mean....another topic for another time).

Of course as the class went around and looked at how we all set up our still lifes, my center of interest was on the left. So we worked with getting it on the right.


Deb asked us to paint the still life for the rest of class, about 90 minutes. She asked us to approach the painting as we normally would so she could see where she could help us. Fortunately, I am a "put in the darks first" person.

Here is what I wound up with....I felt like I was chasing a freight train as I work very slowly and I'm not used to standing up to paint for that long.

I think my biggest problem was painting in a dark studio. To get good lighting on your still life we turn down the lights. I will probably take a small can lamp to light my easel this week. As you can see, I was pretty wild with the color. The values looked good in the dark!

So much to learn!!

First Two Weeks of Pastel Class

Well, I chose wisely....this is going to be a great class with Deborah Bays!

The first two weeks we have been discussing the difference between two approaches to painting:

Tonal and Light/Shadow
They are important in revealing form on a two-dimensional surface, and play a big role in the "intent" of your painting. (Another new concept, which I will try to explain once I understand it....smiling)

Tonal painting reveals form (a form is your subject...a pear, apple, box, flower) by value, shape and color. It can look quite graphic in nature. A great example of tonal painting is the Japanese prints. If you do a search on Japanese woodblock prints or art you will have some great examples, but I liked this site at Tokugawa Gallery -


http://www.tokugawagallery.com/gallery1.html

12" x 18" My attempt at a tonal drawing using vine charcoal on Canson (white)

I attempted to show form by shapes and values....this was hard for me as I think I am primarily a Light/Shadow painter. So let's take a look at that concept.

Light and Shadow painting reveals the form through light and shadow (things are in the light or they are in the shadow), and some great examples are the old Dutch Masters. Many of today's artists who specialize in Realism employ the Light and Shadow concept. Here is the Wikipedia site for Dutch Masters -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Golden_Age_painting

11" x 12" My attempt at a Light & Shadow drawing using vine charcoal on Canson (cream)

One approach is not more preferred than another, it is all in the intent.....

My observations....
It is much easier for me to employ the Light and Shadow approach when painting.
I do think in the tonal approach when I do my art quilts.
I hate, hate, hate vine charcoal!
I can't wait to explore the idea of "intent" for starting a painting.

All for now.....C

My New Etsy Shop

http://littletonstudio.etsy.com

Come visit my new Etsy shop, Littleton Studio. I will be offering many of my fiber art pieces and some original artwork in pastel and colored pencil.

I will be accepting payments through Paypal or Money Orders.

Girlfriend Getaway!

Just returned home yesterday from a Girlfriend Getaway sponsored by Travel Concepts in Aurora, NE. The pictures above are from historic Weston, MO. Tomorrow I will post some other pictures from the trip.

My lifelong best friend, Sharon, and I turned 60 last month and we decided we would celebrate by spending some time together. This was a trip to historic Weston, MO and Atchison, KS, home of Mary Carol Garrity/Nell Hill's. Mary Carol is the Martha Stewart of KS and her elegant home was open to the public over the weekend. Her retail store is called Nell Hill's and is in downtown Atchison with many other lovely gift shops.

We also attended the New Theater in Overland Park, KS on Friday night and the Atchison Community Theater on Saturday night....both excellent productions.

There was also a farmer's market and flea market in town over the weekend. We also stopped in St.Joe, MO for lunch at a victorian home that is being restored as a bed and breakfast called Whiskey Mansion.

Some pictures to share from the first day....I'll share some of Atchison tomorrow.


St George Hotel in Weston, MO - Lovely architecture and antebellum homes all throughout the town, many on the National Historic Register.

Winery in Weston, MO - in an old church

Arbor at the Winery in Weston, MO

Patio at the Vineyard where we ate lunch..it was a little chilly this day so we ate on the glassed-in porch.

Lovely stained glass from the Vineyard Restaurant. It was such a "moment", sitting on the porch in a quiet little town, far from the worries of the world.

With a Twist II - Peeled Orange in a Twisted Glass

Step 1-Getting some color down with some thoughts about value.......

This is my new colored pencil piece I'm working on. It is 8 x 10 on Ampersand Pastelbord with Coloursoft by Derwent.

The Coloursofts are wonderful and chalky and can be smooshed nicely into the tooth of the board with the stencil brush.

I found this wonderful glass at the Goodwill and I think it adds to the concept of the partially peeled orange.

I won't be finishing it before next weekend...I'm off on a weekend getaway with my lifelong friend Sharon. I'm hoping everything at home goes well while I'm gone. (fingers crossed)

Step 2-More layers to get closer to the value I want with lots of rich color peeking through.

Sale of Still Life

Nectarines 8 x 10 pastel on sanded board

A very welcome event this week, a sale of one of my new pastels.

It's also been another spell of family issues so not much artwork is getting done. But I start my new pastel class with Deborah Bays next Wednesday. I'm so excited and will try to share as much about how my pastel work changes as I can. I suspect my colored pencil work will change as well.

Have a great Labor Day weekend!

Sunny Wall - WIP

Resource photo for "Sunny Wall" was taken in Mexico last November during my cruise and port stop in Cabo San Lucas. This little patio corner was so colorful.

Been working on this pastel for awhile...still have a ways to go but it is coming together.

It's 11 x 14 on Ampersand Pastelbord with soft pastels, mostly Ludwigs. The bright orange underpainting (see lower left corner for bare board) was done over the whole board with NeoColorII's. I wanted a really bright warm hue to show through.

I have a least a layer of soft pastels on everything except for the chair shape (lower left). Today I worked on the focus, the flowering bush.

Dry Brush Technique

This is for Ann ;-) She has asked the most recent questions about the dry brush technique, but I get questions alot about what kind of brush and what kind of results one should hope to achieve.

Many colored pencil artists have their own way of using the dry brush technique involving different papers and pencils. But this is the way I use it on the Ampersand Pastelbord with Coloursoft pencils by Derwent.

The Coloursoft are a bit more chalky than Prismas (Prismas being quite waxy), and when you brush them with a stiff bristle brush they behave a bit more like a soft pastel. Which happens to be the effect I'm after.
Here is a close up of an actual brush that I have used.

A pic of brushes that I bought in a packet at the craft store for about $8.00

This is the results I have achieved testing on gray Ampersand Pastelbord. You can see that the Coloursoft blends more than the Prismas.

I save my Prismas for working on Stonehenge paper where I also use the drybrush technique sometimes. That's a posting for another day.

This dry brush technique is what I used on the "Nectarines" colored pencil piece posted August 12th. The only drawback to this technique is that some of the chalky Coloursoft will brush off and you have to apply more layers. I don't brush too often towards the end of a piece....I usually result to using my fingertips to move the pencil around and to smoosh it into the board.

More Nectarines

Setup Photo - I found this clunky piece of wall art at the craft store in the clearance aisle for 50 cents, and then painted it black. These are my two trusty nectarines from the previous pastel post. I set it up in my nifty black box I made, with some fabrics from my quilt stash as backdrops.
Step 1 - Using my Derwent Coloursoft colored pencils, I covered the tan Ampersand Pastelbord with basic values and colors and smooshed them in with a stencil brush.
Step 2 - More colors, more values and more layers.
Step 3 - the clunky art piece in the back is starting to take shape with value, color and reflected light. More color, more layers.
Finished piece - Nectarines 8 x 10 colored pencil on pastelbord. SOLD

I am finding that my colored pencil work over the last few years has really influenced my recent pastel work, and that my recent pastel pieces have REALLY influenced this latest colored pencil work. I was using the cp's more loosely and more quickly than I have done in the past.

I can't wait to see how this all plays out when I start my pastel classes with Deborah Bays in Sept.

Pirates Captured Me.......not really!

I think this is one of the longest dry spells I have had on my blog. So sorry to be away so long.

The CPSA Convention in Seattle was marvelous. The weather was on the chilly side, what a nice change from 104 degrees back here in Denver.

The Renaissance Seattle was a great hotel. I am not too adverse to problems happening while staying in a hotel...things are bound to go wrong occasionally. Rather it's how you handle the problems that makes an impression on me. My toilet was on the fritz the very first night....when I called in the morning they were up immediately to fix it. I was happy.
http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/seasm-renaissance-seattle-hotel/


The banquet room, membership meeting room, hospitality suite, conference rooms were all well laid out, well equipped and perfect for our needs. You could see the Space Needle and a great view of the Puget Sound from the 28th floor lounge (I even had a nice view of the Sound in my room). The food was lovely! Some of the wait staff needed a few lessons in humility but "ah...to be young!"

The week was jam-packed with activities, but I did manage to make a trip to the Seattle Art Museum to see the traveling Impressionist Exhibit. It came through Denver several months ago and I didn't make it to the Denver Art Museum....so I was thrilled to be able to see it in Seattle.
http://www.seattleartmuseum.org/exhibit/exhibit.asp If you have a chance to see "Inspiring Impressionism" take the time...it's worth it.

The CPSA International Exhibit is still on display until Sept 29th at the Seattle Convention Center (within walking distance to the hotel). It's a huge public space but the artwork looked wonderful on the walls. Sorry, I didn't get any pics of the exhibit. My camera was home on the kitchen table.

My 60th birthday was the travel day home from Seattle, but the week at the convention was one long celebration. It began with a beautiful bouquet of flowers from Pike Flower Market sent by my life long best friend Sharon. She called all the way from central Nebraska to Seattle and arranged to have them sent to my hotel. I didn't even tell her where I was staying. They were waiting on the desk when I arrived in my hotel room.

Next year the CPSA Convention will be in Atlanta, GA. Hope many of you cp'rs that visit my blog will consider coming.....it's an awsome time. The people you meet are the best part.

Off to Seattle!

The big Colored Pencil Society of America International Exhibit and Convention is this next week in Seattle. I'll let you in on all the details when I return late on August 3rd.

Cheers!

Nectarines - Finished

Nectarines 8 x 10" pastels on sanded board Sold

I think this is the finish! I got rid of the fold in the cloth...I think it distracted from the nectarines. I tried to add interest to the cloth with just color, and it turned out sort of abstract.

Nectarines - WIP - 2nd update

Left to finish ....just a little tweaking here and there to tighten up a couple of edges and the fold of the cloth on the left side.

Nectarines - WIP

This is from real life, trying to get in as much practice as possible as I just committed to taking a class with Deborah Bays. My painting/drawing from real life is a bit shaky these days.

Here is a link to some of Deborah's work:

http://www.abendgallery.com/html_artists/bays_deborah/bays.htm

What I like about Deborah's work, other than it's fabulous...is she describes her work as "light revealing form, and conversely, form revealing light". I don't think I could have ever said it that poetically, but I love that same idea and have been trying to explore that this year.

So back to my practice.....this is 8 x 10 on Ampersand Pastelbord with Terry Ludwig pastels (and two Rembrandts).

This is the first step for me...to get some semblance of color, value, and shape on the board and get it covered quickly...like in a half hour.

I'd like to get to step 2 and 3 today but we'll see.

Things are looking up.....

I so appreciate all the messages posted here and through e-mail sending
support and prayers for our family and in particular our son.

The good news is he is doing much better. It seems his problems have
been drug induced/aggravated. He has been taking massive amounts of
meds since brain surgery last summer.

He was able to get a diagnosis on his seizures while at Swedish Hospital in Denver
10 days ago. Actually it was more of a "we know it's not this" diagnosis. Swedish
has EEG/Video Camera monitoring capabilities which told us that his numerous
seizures (15-20 a day) were not orginating in the brain. There seems to be some
disagreement about what is causing them.

Since the seizures are not orginating in the brain, all of the meds can be discontinued
as they only work on seizures originating in the brain. Too bad we couldn't have
figured this out right after surgery...it would have saved a whole lot of heartache.

The meds are working their way out of his body now and he is really like a new person.
Hubby took him and our grandson for an outing yesterday and said he was doing great.
There have been no seizures since Wednesday.

There is a lesson here....know what is being put in your body by the medical profession.
I certainly believe in a better life through chemistry, but the very drugs that are supposed
to help our quality of life can also be sooooooo destructive. I think doctors are very overworked and stressed, just like most of society today. You become a chart rather than a patient and it's so easy to prescribe a drug and hope it works.

Again, thank you all for your support.

With a Twist - Finished

Well, at least I think it's finished for today. I will probably pop it into a frame and look at if for a couple more days and see what I think.

On to the next project ;-)

With a Twist 8 x 10" pastel on sanded board

With a Twist - 2nd update

Spent a little time on this today, correcting shapes, adding a wider range of color and value. Tomorrow I will try to make the final corrections and adjust edges.

Note to self....a half-peeled orange and it's hanging peeling don't last more than about an hour when exposed :-0

With a Twist - WIP

This is 8 x 10 on Ampersand Pastel Bord with Ludwigs and a few Rembrandt's and Schminke's for the soft pastels.

I'm doing it from real life since I don't have any pressing deadlines at the moment. This is great practice and I definitely need the practice.

All I have done so far is the sketch and cover the board with some basic values and colors. Still have a long way to go.

I haven't done much artwork for the last couple of weeks, so I am in the mode of forcing myself to paint which always makes me feel better, but getting started is a "bear"!

Just to share a bit......

My adult son has been ill for the last year and a half, and we are just coming off the last round of surgery and drug "aftermath". He had a tumor removed from his left frontal lobe last August, and has had doctors pumping anti-seizure meds and narcotics into his body since then. He was in Swedish Hospital in Denver last week and had extensive EEG monitoring done to find out that his seizures do not originate in the brain, therefore none of the drugs being pumped into his body will help, and probably have contributed to the nightmare he has endured. Take away the drugs with their nasty side effects and he is beginning to feel a bit better.

He has 3 adorable children (2 teenagers and a 2-yr old), and a beautiful wife who has the weight of the world on her shoulders right now. I know they are strong, probably stronger than most people....but my heart hurts for all of them....and it makes it darn hard to have the energy and focus to paint.