Sketches for Hunt 34 and Pastel Painting

The first sketches for Scavenger Hunt 34, March 25 - April 2, are #1 Something Glass, Glass candy dish. Sketched many times before, very handy on the coffee table. #2 Something Old and the full page challenge, An antique iron made of iron, you would open the lid and fill with hot coals from a wood stove. The handle is wooden. #3 Something New, A stress ball, gift from the baseball game (Time Warner was a sponsor and gave out the balls at the gate). All were sketched in my generic sketchbook about 6.5 x 8.5 inches with a Pilot ball point pen. It is interesting to see the different styles and reasons that people join in on the Scavenger Hunts. Some do very quick sketches and some are near finished drawings suitable to framing. The artists use varied media as well, even computer drawing. Walter Logeman uses a computer with several different drawing programs. Makes sketching more interesting to me. Of course I spend more time blogging and reading instead of painting. I need to go read Maggie Stiefvater's blogging entry, How to Juggle and Other Parlor Tricks, again for hints on making time for all we need to do. She is amazing .


I sketch with a pen to keep from erasing. I'm trying to get descriptive strokes down the first time. I think this will be helpful when painting to be able to use fewer strokes and leave them untouched and fresh. This would be great with pastels as when you touch and blend them they loose the vibrancy as they are pigment crystals and untouched they have facets to reflect light. There are times when I blend, sometimes for skies and shadows. Some instructors say to never blend, others blend with fingers, brushes, tortillion, (I noticed on Wikipedia, they spelled it 'tortillon' at the top of the definition and 'tortillion' in the definition. Interesting) packing foam, etc. In the end, it seems to be personal preference.

I worked on a pastel painting today. I worked more on it after this photo. At this point it was slightly smaller on the left top ellipse. This little painting, 5 x 7, on mounted art spectrum is to replace the one I sold at my show at Daddy's Grille. It has only a small amount of blending. I did some blending with a harder pastel over the soft pastels. Maybe it will be called, Cola in Blue.