"Tulips for the Girls", Pastel, 8" x 11"

It occurred to me that I never shared this painting on my blog.  It is something I painted a few years ago, and it was around Easter.  So, in honor of  Easter and the promise of Spring, I am posting this painting.    I ended up giving prints of this to my Mom, my sisters, and my sisters-in-law, thus the title "Tulips for the Girls".

I painted this on watercolor paper, with Art Spectrum Colourfix primer.  I used pan pastels sprayed with alcohol as the underpainting, and various sticks from my vast collection.

Happy Easter!

© by Christine DiMauro, all rights reserved.

The value of a value sketch.....

I find myself using value sketches more and more when starting a landscape.  I combine a small thumbnail with a bit of a more finished sketch, ending up with a "thumbnail value sketch".  The size is a bit larger than a thumbnail, this one is 5" x 7".  I sketched it using vine charcoal on some paper I prepared for pastel, Arches hot press watercolor paper with pumice gel applied with a foam roller.  My original intent was to just do the value study as a gray scale underpainting, and then start pasteling.  I kind of like this, so I think I'll just keep it as is.  It will be useful in developing a larger pastel painting I think.  I'm going to try to use it as my reference, and disregard my photo from this point forward.  This way I won't be "married to the photo", sort of a freeing experience I think.

© by Christine DiMauro, all rights reserved.

Note to self...... "use lighter colored paper when sketching with vine charcoal...."

Let me just preface this post by apologizing for not posting anything these past few months.  I had a personal loss and have been dealing with the sadness.  I have been unable to paint and I just let it be, knowing that eventually I would come around.  Yesterday seemed to be the day that broke my hiatus.  I somehow was able to find some joy in my art again. 

This was sketched at a portrait workshop last night.  His name is Billy, and I sketched from life, it was done in about 45 minutes.  I started it thinking I would do a full color pastel sketch.  My thought process was to block in the face using darks, to sort of have the image appear using the negative space and dark values.  I've always wanted to try this approach, and I found it is quite difficult yet very effective.   As I progressed I found I liked the vine charcoal and the effect I was getting.  I didn't want to introduce anything else into the mix (like a light colored pastel to show my lights..... sigh....), so I just let it be.  I like the way this turned out despite the fact that the paper I used is a bit too dark (Canson MT is the paper I used.)  Next time I will just decide in the beginning that it will be a charcoal and use a lighter toned paper - in a perfect world anyway... we all know how that goes.  Sometimes when I plan it goes against me.  More often I get these "happy accidents" (thank you Bob Ross, I've always loved that phrase), or serendipity (thank you Richard McKinley, another great descriptive....).  It's a good thing I at least know how I achieved this, sometimes serendipity occurs but the vehicle used to get there remains a mystery....

© by Christine DiMauro, all rights reserved.

Workshop with Stan Sperlak at the Noyes Museum, New Jersey

I had the pleasure of taking a workshop this past weekend with Stan Sperlak.  He is a very accomplished artist who has mastered the art of simplification.  He specializes in paintings of the Jersey shore, as well as nocturnes.   He paints with passion, he loves what he paints and it shows.  Here are some photos, I learned a lot and had fun as well!

Can you believe this gorgeous painting by Stan?  The size is massive, it's absolutely magnificent!  He truly is a master of simplification, and his paintings make such a statement.   One painting was better than the next, the room was filled with eye candy!

I went to this workshop with my friend Cindy.   We decided to take a short drive to the marshes for some quick sketching and photos, then back to the museum to do some painting.  Most of the students stayed and sketched and painted the scenery in the back of the museum.  We were more interested in the marshes, so off we went! 

After I painted my first sketch, we broke for lunch, had some discussions, and then headed back to our easels for more sketching.  Stan challenged me to take the same scene I sketched and do four more, smaller in size, and different in color/time of day/season, whatever I wanted.  He told me to "just make it up"..... not something easy to do.  Well, I'm not one to back down from a challenge, so off I went back to my easel for some very quick paintings.  The first one was somewhat successful, and the second one needs some tweaking.  When he came by to check on me he then challenged me to make the third one a nocturne, and the last one in the fog.  I ran out of time for the foggy scene, but I did get in my very first nocturne.  It helped that I was surrounded by his beautiful paintings, most of which were nocturnes.  All my paintings are done on Uart paper, 500 grit.

Painting #1 from my sketch at the marshes, and from memory as well as a digital photo (I looked at my camera a bit as I painted, though the image was pretty small).  Size is 8" x 10".

© by Christine DiMauro, all rights reserved.

Painting #2 was made up, I really was just trying to use a different color palette.  Size is 4" x 5 1/2".

© by Christine DiMauro, all rights reserved.

Painting #3 is also made up.  I had some trouble with the color palette on this one, I don't think it was a successful as the last one.  Size is 4" x 5 1/2".

© by Christine DiMauro, all rights reserved.

Painting #4 is a nocturne.  This was my first time trying a nocturne, but as I said it helps to be surrounded by nocturnes done by a master.  Size is 4" x 5 1/2".

© by Christine DiMauro, all rights reserved.

Here you can see that I just took a larger piece of paper and taped it off into four sections so I could paint smaller.  You can also see the fourth one was started (the foggy scene), but I ran out of time.

© by Christine DiMauro, all rights reserved.

In honor of this workshop I finally set myself up with a small Dakota box.  I brought it with me to the workshop, I found it quite nice to have all my pastels in one place! 

Filling this box with pastels was quite a lot of work, and this may not be my end result.  I just may add more darks and lights, and remove some midtones.  I have to work with it some more to be sure, I think it is a work in progress.

It was a great workshop!   I highly recommend Stan's workshop to anybody that loves pastels, loves to plein air, and wants to learn to simplify.  He can release you from the slavery of photo references, I'm sure of it!

"In a Mood", charcoal sketch, 8 1/2" x 11 1/2" on Canson paper

This is a charcoal sketch I did quite some time ago.  I was intrigued by the expression on her face, and I wanted to play with some new charcoal pencils I bought.  I figured it was a good subject to play with.  This was completed pretty quickly, and I was pleased with the result.

© by Christine DiMauro, all rights reserved.

Veronica for Dan - #2, Pastel, 11" x 12 1/2", painted on Wallis Belgium Mist

I know I haven't posted a painting in a while, life has gotten in the way but I'm now hoping to get back on track.  I had this one on the easel for quite a while, I just wasn't able to complete it until just yesterday.  I'm quite glad it is done, I really hate it when something sits for too long in an unfinished state.

The lighting was a bit difficult, it was coming from her right, but almost behind her as if backlit.  Not much in the way of shadowing, it was a challenge to model the face properly but I think I got it.

© by Christine DiMauro, all rights reserved.

A rare look at a master

I found this video clip on artist Ken Elliot's blog, and I thought I would post it here also to share with my followers.  It is facinating to me to be able to actually see this master in action, too bad we cannot see the painting he was working on.  Nevertheless a very interesting peek into the past.

This was originally uploaded to Youtube by Nick Wallace Smith.