Refillable markers

Painting by Vicky Christensen, mixed media on 12 x 12 inch canvas

I'm still painting whimsical flowers but mixing things up. This time I started with a base of pastel scribbles and matte medium. Following layers were a mix of heavy body, fluid and high flow acrylics and glazes. I used high flow acrylics in refillable markers for doodles, as well as a dipping pen to draw the fine lines.

Fruit plate

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic on 14 x 18 inch canvas 

I finished the still life. Here is what the pastel/glazing fluid underpainting looked like before I started glazing on the color:

Underpainting, black pastel, acrylic glazing medium, titanium white acrylic

My optometrist says I have cataracts  (not too advanced yet, very common at my age). She says when I reach the stage where I have them removed, colors will suddenly look much brighter. I'm wondering what this painting will look like then. I can't imagine it being more colorful!

Starting a still life

Work in progress

I bought some fake fruit at Michaels last week with the intention of painting some still lifes. I decided to borrow from the techniques of my last couple paintings and start with a black pastel sketch on a canvas prepped with clear gesso, followed by some glazing fluid to morph the line drawing into a grisaille underpainting. Right now my fruit platter is floating in space. I haven't decided what will be in the background. Stay tuned for further developments.

Another bouquet

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic on 16 X 12 inch canvas 

Here's another bouquet for my online friends. This one started with high flow acrylics on a canvas prepped with Golden acrylic grounds for pastels. It's fun to wet the canvas, drip the paint and watch it spread. Once again I used a black pastel to sketch the bouquet followed by glazing medium to fix the pastel lines. I painted the flowers with fluid acrylics, toned down the background with a Titan Buff glaze and added some dry brushed highlights.

Artist's Block

So now that the class is over what do I do? Starting by gathering the tools of the trade, I bought a small adjustable table for my bedroom "studio" and some pastel paper (Canson Mi Teintes). Now I had something to paint with, but what to paint? I have a number of photos I took of the garden of my old house and thought something in that group of pictures must be pastel-worthy. I settled on a photo of a red maple in bud. It's one of my favorite photos and simple enough that I should be able paint it with my limited skills. I picked out one of the blue-tinted sheets of Mi Teintes and started to paint.

NuPastel on Canson Mi Teintes, textured side

Here's what I learned: I do not like the textured side of Canson Mi Teintes. I had to do a lot of blending with shapers and paper blenders to make the texture less noticeable. Some people might like the texture, but I don't, especially when I am going for a more realistic look.

For my first effort, I am pleased with the result. This painting now hangs in my main-floor powder room.

Getting Started

first drawing using NuPastel

To jump start my learning I took a community ed class taught by Barb Pinc Wichterman. Barb is an accomplished artist and also is a long-time art teacher. We started by doing a still life using Prismacolor NuPastels. The price of the course included a 24 color set of pastels.This is my first painting. Nothing to brag about, but you need to start somewhere. In case it isn't obvious, my "composition" included a zucchini, yellow squash and a red onion.

In a subsequent class we branched out (pun intended) to the following picture:

This painting was done on a black support (now that I/m an "artist" I like to throw around the lingo). I enjoyed doing this one.

There were 5 class sessions in total. Following are the remaining paintings I did for the class.