Almost Tea Time, Pastel Painting

I did not sketch or paint today. I was off to Austin to shop for art supplies and attend the Austin Pastel Society monthly meeting. Lucretia Coke gave a talk about Frank Reaugh, a Texas pioneer pastel and oil painter. He was her teacher and mentor. His paintings are at the Texas Capitol Visitors Center for a couple of months. One hangs in President Bush's office in Washington.



This is one of my paintings from a while back. I haven't had a good photo of it. Larry came out the other day with his famdancy camera and took one. This was painted in my studio that was downtown in Bastrop. There was an antique shop in the front of the building and the dealer was throwing away this creamer and sugar bowl so I picked it up and painted it. A friend there in the building was amazed to watch the progress from a splattered underpainting to this finished painting. When I paint, I usually cover the paper pretty well and develope it all at the same time. It goes through some pretty ugly stages. In painting the silver you paint the lights and darks and it turns to silver. It is always so tempting to put on the highlights first. One of the television instructors, Helen Van Wyk, says that what you notice about a painting and see first, the artist puts on last.

Almost Tea Time, pastel, is 11 x 14 inches on Art Spectrum sanded paper.

Oh, by the way, on my gift shop there is free shipping for purchases over $50 for Valentine's Day.