Follow-along: Rendering Glass #1

| cathmary1030

I watched Marla Baggetta‘s video of her painting a blue glass bowl and made my own attempt. I imitated Marla in using the “Blue Spruce” NuPastel to sketch the bowl, but that’s not something I would do again — my own preference would be to sketch in a much lighter color pastel.

I think the pastels are quite “muddy”, and I had an Aha moment later when I realized I lay down the color with a heavy hand. I think I filled up the tooth of the paper.

I also had a difficult time imitating Marla’s strokes; although I used the side of the pastel, either the pastel was too “slippery” or the paper not toothy enough. It felt to me the pastel was “skipping”.

Portrait in Charcoal

| cathmary1030

This portrait is based on a photo I downloaded from Pixabay. I used soft vine charcoal for the large shaded areas, For the more detailed areas, I used charcoal pencils 2B and 6B, in addition to Conte crayon in light gray, with mere touches of Conte in white. The rendering was done on Strathmore 400 gray toned sketch paper.

Based on an image by endorassi from Pixabay

Persimmon Study

| cathmary1030

This persimmon is from our tree (which has largely been picked over by now, by my husband harvesting, and by the local blue jays pecking at the fruit).

I held the persimmon in my left hand, looking down at it as I painted with my right hand. My goal was to paint the detail as realistically as possible. The primary pastel I used was one from Great American, called Marigold (585.0) I love the vibrant color — perfect for this fruit!

The photo is of the specific persimmon, but was taken afterward, and is rotated 90 degrees to the viewer’s left relative to the sketch.

New Pastels!

| cathmary1030

Some of the pastels I ordered arrived today — yay! I now have some Blue Earth (21 Portrait), some Unison (16 half-sticks Portrait), Richeson Hand-rolled Yellow #1 – #20, Richeson Hand-rolled Portrait (mid-values), Sennelier Landscape 30 half-sticks, and of course the 120 half-sticks of Blick Artist’s soft pastels.

Pear Study

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This study was done on Canson Mi-Tientes Touch paper, one from my Jackson’s Art sampler.

I like the contrast of the blue background with the orangey-yellow highlighted side of the pear. I don’t particularly care for the way the pastel doesn’t “fill in” the paper.

And since I did this study, I’ve learned that the pros often do underpainting for numerous reasons, one of which is coverage and a unified tone. I had thought that using toned paper in itself might be enough. It’s okay but it looks more like a drawing than a painting.