Preparing My Painting Surface for the Easel

I like to paint standing up at an easel. I also like to paint to the edge of my surface. When working on a small canvas or actually any painting, my hand runs into the bottom of the easel and have difficulty painting the edge. Most easels have a board on top which makes a shadow on the top of the painting. I tape my board, canvas, paper to a larger board or piece of foam core and work from there. This method of taping keeps tape off the corners of your work, too.

This makes it easy to paint to the edge of the surface. For framing oils or acrylics this is important. I frame my pastels against the glass, usually, so again it is nice to paint to the edge.

Here is the short video showing how I tape my surface to a board for painting on the easel.

Larry Seiler - Light Box and Brushstroke Video

I have been reading Larry Seiler's blog and watching him paint on wetcanvas.com for a few years. He is a great teacher and another artist that is always studying and improving his techniques and painting. Larry painted wild life in a very detailed manner for years and is now a plein air painter and paints in a relaxed painterly fashion. He has some instruction books, CD's and more. He has several websites and is a moderator for the Plein Air Forum on wetcanvas.com. He is very helpful with great comments and instruction. He is one of those northerners that paints out in the snow and cold. Yikes!

This post is how to make a light box for painting small objects from life. There is a short video about brushstrokes, too. I always like watching someone else paint! Have fun.

Clouds at Sunset, Pastel Painting

Yesterday while taking a break from the saguaro painting I painted one of my small Jo's Notions. These are small inexpensive paintings in various media. Jo's Notions give a collector or first time buyer a chance to have an original painting at a price you might pay for a printed copy.

I worked with pastels on this little sunset painting. The scene is in New Mexico as you might suspect. The sunsets there are gorgeous.

Clouds at Sunset
Pastel on board with Colourfix Primer
5 x 7 inches, unframed

These Notions and all my paintings are available with free shipping. Click here to see and buy a variety of my work. Here is a direct link to this sunset painting. You can pay through Paypal or with your credit card there. If you have any questions, drop me an e-mail.

Sketching Scavenger Hunt 114, The End

It turns out that Scavenger Hunt 114 ends on the 5th. I did a few more sketches. It is a good feeling to accomplish more. I painted on the saguaros today, did a small painting (Jo's Notion, I didn't get it posted yet.) and the sketching. Wow! Was that me??? It was very cool here today so we didn't go out anywhere. The procrastinator side of me didn't want to put away the Christmas tree and other stuff. That is why the Santa hat was still out. Art was more fun than packing up the decorations. Heh, heh. Gene took down the outside lights, wreath, etc., and put them away yesterday.

This is a challenge - assorted head covers. I had intended to sketch golf head covers and then just started sketching these hats. The golf hat is white, the cowboy hat is yellow straw, the Santa hat is red with white "fur" and the Bolivian hat is many colors with the dark lines being green. This particular hat is woven by the men on the altiplano. With the Rotring pen on a page in the sketchbook, 7 x 10 inches. About 15 -20 minutes.


Another challenge - a page of hand sketches. Rotring pen in the same sketchbook. About 25 minutes. So there you are, then.

Sketching On.....

Scavenger Hunt 114 ends tomorrow. I managed 8 sketches so far and that will probably be it. I watched a little TV and sketched this evening. No football watched today .. a break in routine this time of year. We watch college football and especially the Longhorns. Their game is Monday. I haven't really sat and watched any of the games except yesterday with Jennie and it was recorded so we skipped all the commercials. Texas Tech lost to Ole Miss in the Cotton Bowl. Sad for the Big 12.

I was going to sketch the grand-dogs as they fit many of the words for this Hunt. Especially "spoiled", but they also fit: noise, frustration, energetic, pleasant (at times), comfort (for Jennie) and aromatic. Ha. Too bad I didn't sketch them. I should have done one from "memory" but I did the hard drive before I thought of that. Ah well, another time for those cute dogs.

Number 5, comfort - the comforter on the couch. Number 6, odd - the golf club pens given to us by our grandson, Cole. Both done with a Micron 005 pen in the 7 x 10 inch sketchbook. Freehand.


Number 7, matches- a little box of matches decorated by one of the children with felt and gold paper. Number 8, memory - the hard drive for my computer. Sketched freehand with the Micron 005 pen. All together 40 minutes or so.

I painted on the saguaros as well. I should be able to post those tomorrow. Tune in again.....

Photographs by Larry Castillo

I haven't mentioned Larry's photograph website, Larry Castillo Photography, in a while. He has some beautiful work there. He has included photos from the Balloon Festival now in the slideshow section so if you want to see more balloons drop by Larry's site and have a peek. If you need photos for an event, keep him in mind.

My photo of Larry at a UT Baseball game. He was working.

He has been shooting sports, weddings, scenery, company photos, etc. He has a great eye and great equipment to preserve your event in pictures!

The Boys aka The Grand-dogs
Photo by Larry Castillo
Copyright Larry Castillo

Larry was taking care of the "boys" for Jennie and took them on a photo shoot. This is one of the many I liked!

First Sketch of 2009 and Thank You

I painted with pastels today. I'm working on one of the 12 x 12 inch Pastelbords that I had on hand. I'm doing some saguaros. Maybe I can finish it tomorrow. This evening I did one sketch for Scavenger Hunt 114. It is my first sketch of the year. It is nice to get the first sketch done. break the ice, so to speak. This Hunt runs until January 4, so I have an opportunity to get some more done.


Number 4, game - the letters and tray from an old Boggle game. Jennie has Boggle on her iPod now so we played on that for Christmas. This is now an antique, I suppose. The perspective is not great (freehand drawing). This is the second effort, I won't show you the first.


I want to thank all my followers and readers of my blog, and some of you that just look at the paintings! :) I have made so many friends and learned so much through this effort. This has been another super year for my blog, I started in June 2006. I never thought I could post so regularly. I have started a diary or journal many times in my life and would write once in a while for a month or so and then abandon the project.

I want to thank my Scavenger Hunt buddies for keeping me on track and sketching regularly. A good year there, too!

I post sporadically to the Pastel forum, Southwestern and the Plein Air forum on wetcanvas.com. Great artists in those forums. Wetcanvas is a great place to interact with other artists and see what is new in any media you can think of.

I admit that I am somewhat addicted to blogs. (Is that like being a little bit pregnant?) I want to thank those of you whose blogs I read that let your entire post show on my reader. I read so many blogs and it saves time and I get to read more blogs if you do that. I know some folks put a snippet only so that I have to go to their blog to "up their stats". Personally if I am in a hurry, I don't go to the blog to read it there. On the blogs that I read on my reader, I do go to your blog to comment and once in a while to check out the look and see what you have going in your sidebar,etc. But I do so appreciate the shortcut to reading in my reader. Ah, the cat is out of the bag. How many blogs that I read will now only have snippets or will you be hoping to boost your stats? We shall see. Thank you guys. I hope you have a great and prosperous New Year. I am looking forward to 2009 and more and better blogging! See you around........