Lupins

Lupins (soft pastel, 12x19)

Dana Marie at Inspiration All Around Us provided us with a secret garden challenge. She gave us a lovely picture of some lupins. This is my interpretation of that theme. Very sketchy but I think I like that about it. I could have worked up the leaves a bit more but I chose to leave it all loose. The flowers themselves are just 4 layers of white, pink, purple and blue and I left it at that. Thanks Dana Marie for another terrific challenge.

More Colour in Florence

I've added some more clolour to my painting of Florence. I feel like I'm struggling with making the buildings square and I can already see another spot that will need fixing up. (Well I see more than that actually. I'm just gonna keep on plugging away at this I guess and hopefully I'll finish with something that I'm happy with.

Some Colour Added To Florence Scene

Well here us the first bit of colour on the painting from Florence. Wandering around Florence was lovely and the day they did the pictures from Florence the lighting was pretty spectacular. I had seen some user photos on Google Earth with these lovely reflected buildings and found them quite by accident to the (I think) east of Ponte Vecchio. And my DB was able to help me figure out how to do screen shots in order to get the photos I was taking of Florence into my computer for reference. The orange building on right's reflecion is a bit wonky, I'll have to adjust that. but so far so good.

Chalk Sketching

These are two chalk sketches I did tonight. The top one is a rough sketch inpsired by Dana Marie's photo of lupins from Inspiration All Around Us and the second is for the Virtual Paintout which is in Florence for June. I'm not sure how either one of these may turn out. The bottom one may be too small and the top one may be too large and I'm worried about being able to get the lighting right on the lupins but... Guess I'll give them a whirl.

Just realised I have to go buy more paper tomorrow morning - almost out of black - just one sheet left.

Summer's Gifts

Summer's Gifts (12x18, chalk pastel)

For the challenge this week at DSFDF, Karin Jurick offered us a photo of some summer vegetables. It was a terrific challenge and I loved painting them. The lighting was spectacular and that is what made it such fun to paint.

The challenge I gave myself was to try and portray the different textures - the onion, tomato and then corn in husks. I think I managed to meet my own challenge. The thing I'm trying to learn is to draw what I see and not what I think should be there. No assumptions - just look at the light and shadow and colours and draw what I see with no preconceived notions.

Wish I hadn't taken so long to do this drawing but I did it.

Inspiration All Around Us - week 29

Blue Sky With Clouds (pastel, 12x19)

This is my response to Dana Maries newest challenge over at Inspiration All Around Us. She provided a wonderful picture of an amazing blue sky with clouds with a landscape below the sky.

Landscapes are something that I struggle with. I like how the sky and clouds turned out as well as the tree with moss on the left hand side.

I guess I'm happy with this... It's not too bad.

Thanks, Dana Marie, for another terrific challenge. Can't wait for the next one!