Mixing it up! Built Up, Casting Shadows, francesca's, and The Creamery

Built Up, 12x12" Pastel

Still have an immense amount of work to do in the studio that has nothing to do with painting, but everything to do with upcoming shows and competitions, so there is no recent work to share.  In the meantime, here are a couple of pastels I worked on a few months ago that have been entered into two separate shows. I'm hoping they both get in, but having been a judge and been judged, ya never know what they will pick from day to day. Anyway, I still like them and find a lot of joy pushing the colors or working on unusually rough surfaces like the one below.

"Casting Shadows" 9x12" Pastel on reclaimed Wallis paper

This piece was painted on a used piece (reclaimed) of Wallis sanded paper. I will take a painting that just didn't turn out and will wash away the pastel pigment that retains a subtle ghosting on the paper. Sometimes a reclaimed piece of Wallis will offer a most unusual effect. Here the sky has a darker underpainting. It worked out great because the sky was ever changing with threatening clouds moving in fast.

"francesca's" 14x11" Oil on canvas panel

Back in mid-May, I plein air painted for one weekend for the Lake Oswego Festival of the Arts "Chronicle Show". The Arts Counsel of Lake Oswego planned a plein air event to chronicle the city and had asked 30 artists to paint the parks and urban spaces. The "paint out" was a two-weekend event with selected locations. I decided on downtown Lake Oswego and here is what I painted. "franchesa's" (above) took two sessions to complete as it was pretty complicated.  The one below, "The Creamery" took nearly 4 hours to complete, that's including time with visitors and chit chat with fellow artist Jennifer Deihl at my side.

"The Creamery"  12x16" Oil on cavas panel

The LOFA Chronicle show information is posted in my "events" in the right column.

Following the paint out weekend, I flew down to Carmel to paint along with 50 other artists in the Carmel Arts Festival, so I didn't get to paint both weekends for the Chronicle. :(  Not a bad deal though, because Carmel is such a beautiful area to paint! More to come later.....