I started out my painting session today by further refining the flowers, adding more shading to the leaves, and more detail to the colorful centers. Unfortunately I only have two shades of purple, so I had to layer pink and white in areas to give the painting enough color variation.

I ultimately decided to add a stem because the flowers looked a little strange just floating in space. The finished product…

I haven’t done a flower portrait in a while, but I always have a bunch of reference material ready when the urge strikes. These shooting stars were found all along the Riverside Walk trail in Zion National Park when we visited in May.

I always start out with a soft charcoal drawing to help with composition and placement. You can faintly see my drawing below…

Next I filled in the purple petals, roughly adding some shading and highlights along the way.

After I get the petals where I want them, I began adding color to the middle portion of each flower.

I haven’t decided if I want to include the stem or the bud in the lower right corner yet. I’m going to leave it for now and ponder my options tomorrow afternoon.

I hand-delivered Ella to Christina in North Raleigh this morning.

For transport and storage, I sandwiched the painting between a sturdy piece of cardboard after I covered the pastel with a sheet of tracing paper to prevent smudging. I wanted her to be able to keep the painting safe until she was ready to frame it.

I let her know how to handle the painting, but from now on I am going to include a little “how to take care of me” sticker when I deliver my commissioned work. I never use fixative, but my pieces are blended fairly well so there isn’t a lot of chalk sitting on top. Pastel paintings can smudge unlike acrylic or oil paintings, so when you frame a pastel it has to go behind glass with a spacer or mat separating it from the glazing.

I’m so excited, my first official commissioned work!

Landscapes are not my thing, so I am finding that finishing this painting is taking a bit more effort than I am used to. However, since I am posting every day this month, now is the time to get things done!

This painting was shelved when I switched entries for the show in Blowing Rock this month, but I had finished laying color down in the sky, rock, and foreground areas.

My next step is to continue adding details until I think the painting is finished and this is where I am running into trouble. Most of my work is detailed, but not hyper-realistic. So, do I want a lot of detail or should I keep it loose?

Here’s what I have so far…

I had to put off working on this painting while we were traveling to Curacao and Florida, but I had a wonderful time finishing it up this afternoon.

I had already finished the general outline of the cat, so I started by adding more detail to the body and face. I worked with several different shades of gray to create a more three-dimensional image. Ella is entirely black, so I needed to exaggerate some of the highlights to emphasize her legs and head.

Once I had the level of detail I wanted, I added a red background to represent the red door she was photographed in front of in two of the pictures I was given.

After smoothing out the red and adding some texture to the door, I realized that the cat’s head was not quite right. I went back into the black with a kneaded eraser and filled in the background as needed.

Finishing up, I added a rough white floor, whiskers, and the final detail to the eyes. For the quality of photos I had to work with, I am very happy with the outcome.

Just in time for Halloween!

I met Christina at a Small Business meetup group last month and a few weeks later, she contacted me about painting her cat, Ella. I haven’t met many professional trombone players and her love of jazz makes her cat’s name a perfect choice.

This is my first time painting a cat, and since Ella is entirely black, I knew it was going to be a challenge!

I normally like to use black paper, but in this case I went with a neutral gray so I could play up the lights and darks in her fur as needed.

She gave me several photos, but Ella’s eyes are entirely white in the pose I liked best, so I found a few photos of cat eyes that look very similar as well as some closeups of Ella’s eyes to use when I get to that part of the painting.

At this point in my painting process, I am filling in her body and head with blacks and dark grays, trying to emphasize different parts of the anatomy using subtle value changes.

More progress to come…

After I colored in the sky, I wanted to get the base color of the landscape filled in.

For the rock, I mostly concentrated in the main colors and blended using my fingers without too much attention to detail. The main focus is the arch, so I spent a little more time in the beginning defining the colors around this area.

Then I did the same thing with the foreground. The vegetation is actually very similar to South Africa in that it’s mainly brush and shrubs with very few trees and grassy areas. I wanted to show that there were many green areas broken up by the brownish soil and rock.

I don’t have a lot of experience with painting landscapes, but from what I’ve seen it makes the most sense to work from the sky down into the foreground.

My initial sketch is just that, I like to block in the main lines with vine charcoal. My main objective is to identify the big shapes so I don’t waste pastels by going over the same areas with different colors.

I started by putting in a thick layer of blue on the sky and suggesting the shapes of the clouds. I actually combined two photos from our trip in Photoshop for this painting… the original sky was a very flat blue and I wanted a little more drama.

Once I get the overall color in for the rest of the painting, I’ll add more detail to the sky as needed. I also darken it up some depending on the tonal range of the rest of the painting.

Yesterday, I spent an hour drawing with chalk in a four foot by four foot square in the hot sun. I found out about this street painting festival rather late, but still managed to score a square, lucky #7…

(with a big ‘ole oil stain in it… that blue towel was tossed shortly after I finished the painting as it was coated with grease)

I decided the night before to paint Riesling on our colorful futon to make full use of the myriad of colors available. I was afraid of running out of black, gray and white if I just did her portrait.

I had a few people stop by and ask some questions and I overhead more folks say “Look, a schanauzer!” Good to know that she was recognizable!

Here I am adding some highlights to her eyebrows after I signed it.

It was so hot that my sweat kept dripping onto my reference photo and painting! Plus, I am completely filthy.

I’m happy with my final product, especially since it was my first time participating in a street painting festival. Many folks were planning with grids and really working the pastel chalk into the ground, using hair spray as a fixative. I basically just sketched on the ground. After completing one myself, I can really appreciate the effort that goes into the beautiful works that some people create at these things!

My first challenge was to make a definite distinction between the hair on her face and her long ears. The other feature I wanted to be sure to capture was her breed-specific underbite.

After finishing her collar and tags, I felt the portrait was almost done. After much deliberation I decided that I liked it better with a plain background. I added some more detail to her left ear and added some shading under her chin on the collar.

The final product!