Connecting with Local Artists

A few weeks ago I saw a notice in our local paper about a local art group, the Tomball Art League.

I was interested in learning about them because I was looking for a group close to home.  Houston is such a sprawled out city that any art event I would go to in Houston usually involved an hour or more drive time, one way.

I was a member of Spectra Artists in Houston for a while, but never went to any of the meetings as they were far away, and by the time I got home from work (often a two hour trek), there was no way I could get to them before they were over.

I didn't re-up my membership with Spectra Artists for 2016 since I wasn't working full time.

So I'm really excited to have joined up with Tomball Art League (TAL) and went to my first meeting today.

Since it's December, it took the form of a holiday painting party and gift exchange, plus everyone bought some snacks, so there was a wonderful spread of food.  

It was very enjoyable meeting local artists and after the business meeting, we were each given a 10 x 8 canvas, brushes, paints and a reference picture to copy.  And while we were painting, we also got on with the gift exchange and the white elephant exchange, which were great fun.

I got some lovely Christmas ornaments hand-made by one of the members, and my white elephant gift was some Tom Jones paintbrushes.

Here's my effort, the first acrylic painting I have done in over 30 years, lol.  

As I mentioned in my last post, I recently got my pastels out of mothballs and have been playing with them a little.  So the idea came to me to use the same reference picture we had used at the painting party, but this time see if I could produce a pastel version of it.

Here it is in progress, with the reference photo picture above it.

Here's it is, more or less finished.

It was just a quick, happy piece.  It was fun to do - I need to do more little studies like this.  I should remember to focus on what I see versus what I put on paper.  I noticed that my squiggle across the middle of the ornament is too squiggly compared wit the reference pic, lol. 

Here's a closer look at it. (As with the other pictures, you can click on it to see a larger version)

It's not great, but the more I practice, the more my observation will improve.

The Hay Field

As I mentioned in a recent blog post, I have recently got back into painting with soft pastels.  After several years of no art in my life at all, and then a few years creating art digitally, it's been fun, interesting and therapeutic to put pastel to paper and see what I can create.

The first thing I realized was that, if I wanted to work in my current studio, I would need better light.  My studio is actually the formal dining room of our home (we use the breakfast nook as our dining room).

My studio, which I named "Mockingbird Studio", is in the center of the house and although it's open on two sides to the living room and kitchen, it doesn't get direct light.  That was fine when working on the computer, not so useful when working on an easel.

I started looking for lamp setups for an art studio and found what I needed in the Daylight Lamp.  It was a bit pricey, but I had a birthday coming up and I put it on my wishlist.

My wonderful husband bought it for me for my birthday and we rearranged my desk a bit to enable me to use it and my easel next to my computer.

This will enable me to view video tutorials while I'm working alongside at my easel.  I love it!

Anyway, on to my latest artwork (sneak preview above).

On the way home from seeing my horse at the barn last weekend, I caught sight of a lovely view that I really wanted to try and paint in pastels.  If I had my camera with me, I probably would have stopped and taken a reference photo.  As it was I tried to commit it to memory as I sped by and when I got home, I did something I haven't done in decades - I sketched the scene!

As you can tell, I'm not a sketch artist, but I was able to get enough of a feel for the scene that today I decided to try and do it in pastels.

I simplified it by only putting in two round hay bales, instead of the 12 I had in my sketch which I think would have been a) impossible to do and b) made the picture look too "busy".

This is the first one I've tried to do from scratch, without following a tutorial or a lesson in a book.

Naturally, I can see things now that could/should be changed to make it less amateurish but I think that on the whole, I'm pretty happy with the way it came out.