Cactus Pear #4, Pears Squared Series, 6" x 6 Pastel

Feeling Prickly???  

 

I thought I would try a cactus pear.  The colors are beautiful, and the shape and texture is great.  Yes, they are prickly..... note to self, "Don't touch a cactus pear.  That's why they call them prickly pears..... they have pricklies, and they hurt!"  This one started out with a very strong shadow, too strong actually.  I went in and lightened the value and I like it much better.

I used Unison, Mount Vision, Terry Ludwig, Girault, Grumbacher, and Art Spectrum pastels

 

 © by Christine DiMauro, all rights reserved

Bosc Pear #3, Pears Squared series, 6" x 6" Pastel

Another in my series of pears.  Today I painted a bosc pear.  This is about an hour's worth of painting, not much time and very loose for me.  I give lessons on Thursdays, and I often like to paint along with my students.  It gives them an opportunity to see how I do things, not just hear how I do things.  Funny thing is, I only had enough lights for my students to use to light up their work as they paint.  As a result, I was painting in the dark.....frustrating, but I ended up with something passable.  Also, because of my laziness, I used the same pastel sticks as I did for my last Seckel Pear #2, something I don't like to do.  I'd much rather put all the sticks back, and select some new ones for the new subject.  Alas, laziness won, and I just used what I had out in my tray.  That proved to be a challenge, because some of the colors weren't what I would have "chosen".  These were pre-selected for another subject, a red pear.  Yikes, what was I thinking???

In the end it worked out, and I think it's probably a good idea to try something like this out, forcing yourself to use colors in a subject based purely on nothing else but laziness..... I am laughing just thinking about it, painting in the dark, using colors I didn't select for this subject, talk about sabotaging oneself.....





 © by Christine DiMauro, all rights reserved



"Square Pears", or "Pears Squared"....

Square Pears..... I know, not really.

 

I really should be painting another portrait, and I will very soon.  In the meanwhile, I thought I would start something that I could keep as an ongoing project.  I do love pears as a subject, they've always been a favorite of mine. 

I don't know if I'll actually have the time to paint as many pears as I'd like, but I'm going to try. My plan is to paint pears in a 6" x 6" format, using different varieties, placing them in different lighting and positions. Here are my first two, both are seckel pears, actually the same one in different positions. One side of the pear is red, the other is golden. I like the second painting best, it's looser and I like the color palette.

Painted on Wallis pro, using all different sorts of softies. Unison, Mount Vision, Ludwig, Girault, Art Spectrum and Grumbacher pastels were used.

 

Seckel Pear #1

© by Christine DiMauro, all rights reserved

 

 

 

Seckel Pear #2

© by Christine DiMauro, all rights reserved

"Why?", Pastel, 12" x 12" finally finished

I think I can officially call this one finished.  I've been painting it since the end of November, my brain cells have been consumed with this for 3 1/2 months.  I'm not going to know what to think about now, lol........

This went through quite the rigors of the painting process.  The hair on the right got erased and repainted at least once, the hand and arm got erased and repainted once, and the hair on the left got the same treatment.  Suffice to say Wallis stood the test of abuse, which is why I love this paper. 

 

© by Christine DiMauro, all rights reserved

First Snow, 2 3/4" x 10 1/2", Pastel painted on UArt 500 sanded paper

One of my teeny tiny paintings..... I was showing a student how I would do a watercolor underpainting on UArt... paper, just toning the paper actually. I used a small scrap of paper, and for some reason the colors spoke to me, so I thought I would try a sketch.

For reference, I used a small gouache sketch I did a while ago from a photo I took at Sunken Meadow State Park a few years back. I'd always wanted to do something larger, lol.... this isn't larger, it's about the same size... I guess my next step will be to go larger, I kind of like the color palette, something different.

First the pastel:

© by Christine DiMauro, all rights reserved
 

Now the underpainting:

 

© by Christine DiMauro, all rights reserved

 

And here is the gouache painting:

 

© by Christine DiMauro, all rights reserved

 

Scrapping the Sky, tweaked just a bit.....

I felt the need to tweak this just a bit. There was a light spot on the right that I liked in my thumbnail, and I wanted to add it to the finished piece. I like the bit of tension that spark of light adds to the painting.   I also strengthened one line, to make it come forward a bit.

Getting a good photo is always a challenge.  This is close, but I think my first photo is a better example of the colors and edges.....



© by Christine DiMauro, all rights reserved

"Scraping the Sky", Pastel, 8" x 8", painted on UArt 400

Yup, out of my comfort zone for sure.....

Here is something so out of the box for me even I can't believe I painted it. I'm in the middle of painting a portrait, but I needed a break. A student of mine is painting something that has somewhat of an abstract design. She is approaching it in a traditional manner, almost realistic. I, on the other hand, chose to go 180 degrees in the opposite direction...

This doesn't look anything like the photograph. First I did a charcoal thumbnail sketch in my sketchbook.  Then I went in with pan pastels on UArt 400 paper, sprayed it with Spectrafix, let the drips happen, and let it dry. I then went in with charcoal to lay out the design. Then I pulled out my terryludwigpastels and had at it with color..... I only used my thumbnail as a reference to paint this, I never went back to the photograph. 

First, my thumbnail sketch (4" x 5"):

© by Christine DiMauro, all rights reserved

 

As you can see by the thumbnail, it appears to have some kind of growth on the branches.  In the photo they were red berries, and it was my original intention to put them there.  As the painting progressed I felt that it really didn't need the berries, just the red color of the berries. 

 

Finished painting (8" x 8"):

 

© by Christine DiMauro, all rights reserved

 

I really was hesitant to put in those berries.  I liked the simplification, for me this was all about lost and found edges, scumbling and the color palette.