reach

mostly oil pastels and colored pencil, some acrylic, and a very little watercolor. 5 1/2" x 6 1/2"

i painted a few faces last week but mostly i worked on The Doll... i'd wanted to send her off last tuesday but she just wasn't ready.


i put her on the easel to pose about halfway through... her face was mostly painted so i wrapped it with saran wrap to keep it from getting messed up. what? you think i've got issues with this doll?! hee! i'll wait until my mother's gotten her before i post a finished picture. i wasn't totally satisfied with the way she came out, but mostly...


this is an image transfer of my mother's senior picture from high school - it's on a card that i made for her. i looked in this book at barnes and noble last week and picked up a few pointers about paper and gel medium transfers. the first one was to sand the back of the paper once the gel medium is dry, and the second was to spray it with a mister before wiping the paper off (i had been getting a piece of muslin wet and wiping). the mister idea coupled with sanding works well. the other thing that i did differently is that i sanded it with a piece of 400 grit sandpaper after the image was dry (after taking the wet paper off). this left me with a smooth, clean image. so, i really feel that progress is being made on the image transfer front...

mostly watercolors with a red acrylic background. i used a black colored pencil to outline the face and eyes... approx. 4" x 6" (oh, and pieces of old wallpaper under the squares of muslin)

oil pastels and colored pencil with a very tiny amount of caran d'ache crayons and koh-i-noor pastel pencil. 5" x 7"

i've been having a good time with oil pastels. this face and the top one were done almost completely with oil pastels. on both faces i only used watercolors in the eyes and lips... i also drew this face with the china marker first so i'd have to stick with what i drew - i want to loosen up more and erase less. i just got 'the power of your other hand' (thank you vivian for the heads up!) which is about drawing with your nondominant hand. i am so interested in this as this is the way that i usually draw.


i've only been out walking one day in the last week - i think it was maybe the day of the moon bombing, and between that and feeling generally tired and quiet, i didn't walk far once i reached the dry stream bed i'd headed for. walking upstream was out because it was uphill, and downhill was good but then there was walking back... so i went a few feet and laid down and looked up at the trees.


i took a picture of my traveling colored pencil kit for you. pencils, a paper stump for blending, a 'blending pencil' (i use it on the cheeks if nowhere else), a pencil sharpener, and a piece of muslin. the muslin is great for wiping off the wood before you draw on it. it works like a very fine sandpaper.




i drew the face and then this heart on a log. while i was drawing the heart the tiniest jumping spider i've ever seen jumped on me. he was the size of the head of a pin - oh he was adorable and what a jumper! each jump was about 5" long (!!!) - i wanted to take picture of him but my camera was laying on the ground near the trees. in the course of trying to make sure i didn't squash him


i dumped the pencils on the ground and he got away!


on my way home i stopped to feast on the scent of lichen on juniper, and oh what a feast it was.


other pics of the week... the bright white is the moon and all of the other lights are from a sawmill. i was snapping pics right and left - this one was the result of hitting a big bump in the road, which i thought was particularly serendipitous...


the candle by my chair... i'm fascinated with taking pictures in low light settings...


i took a pic of my art room from another angle... i measured it so i can tell you exactly how big it is - it's 4' x 6'. that's smaller than i thought! the biggest painting on the back wall is jesse reno's 'we must reach for what we cannot see' (yeah, i'd probably buy it for the title alone). i left the pic big in case you want to click and have a look around...


my easel now... i've got an 8" x 10" piece of muslin on there and it seems as big as a billboard! but i'm feelng the need for more room... the purple squares on the left are pieces from an old yoga mat. i put them under the legs of the easel to keep it from scooting around... those oil pastels require a lot of smushing you know...

and finally, thank you for your thoughts and suggestions a couple of posts ago - i appreciate them!


If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.

Edward Hopper


XO