Saran Wrap peony

Painting by Vicky Christensen, watercolor on cold press paper 

This one started with an underpainting that used Saran Wrap to create some texture for the flower and leaves. The key is to apply the crumpled Saran Wrap on still wet paint, then wait for the paint to dry completely.

Negative roses

Painting by Vicky Christensen, watercolor on cold press paper

I've seen some really exceptional watercolor painters who take negative painting techniques to great heights. This is a watercolor skill I really want to work on. This painting started with a loose wet on wet underpainting of pink and yellow.

Joe Pye Weed

Paintingby Vicky Christensen, watercolor on cold press paper

 I'm still finding my way with watercolor. I did a painting yesterday (see below) and I was unhappy with results, primarily the background was sloppy. I gave it another shot today and took a different approach. Who says old dogs can't learn new tricks? Okay, I know I have a lot more to learn, but that's half of the fun.

Big fat pears

Painting by Vicky Christensen, watercolor on paper 

Here's three big juicy pears. Enjoy!

Pastel Paper -- So Many Choices!

The single smartest thing I did since starting to learn about pastels was buying the sample papers and boards from Dakota Pastels. Before buying the sampler I had not tried painting with coated/sanded surfaces. The sampler packs really opened my eyes to what is possible with pastels. I have been working my way through the samples and have found a number of surfaces I really like (and a few that I may never use again). Here is a sampling of the results:

Canson Mi Teintes Touch paper (black)

I had already tried the Touch board for the apple still life. The paper is the same surface without the rigid backing of the Mi Teintes Touch board. I really liked this surface. Not my most favorite, but I can imagine using it again.

PastelMat (yellow)

I loved PastelMat. In fact I loved it so much that I invested in a multi-sheet pad of PastelMat. I'm looking forward to trying some underpainting techniques on it.

Art Spectrum Suede (gray)

Sorry for the bad photo (I took it after it was framed)! Art Spectrum Suede is similar to PastelMat in texture. I had some problems with the lightest areas of the sky -- I had difficulty covering the gray paper with the yellow pastels. I ended up doing a lot of blending with my fingers in the sky (which I rarely do on the textured or sanded surfaces), and that helped to improve the coverage of the pastels.

Sennelier La Carte pastel card

This was a very quick "sketch" done on yellow La Carte. This is loosely based on a photo I took of palm trees in Hawaii. I just wanted to see how much layering of colors I could do. It responded quite well to multiple layers. One of these days I want to revisit this photo and make an effort to really do it justice. I liked La Carte and ordered a multi-colored pad. The one notable drawback to La Carte is that it does not tolerate water (although I have read that you can do Turpenoid underpaintings on it).

colored pencil on Velour

I had read horror stories about pastelists completing a painting on Velour then giving it a good rap or two to shake off loose pastel, only to lose most of the pastel to the dust bin. So I decided to do a colored pencil drawing on it. This was my first attempt with colored pencils and I am pretty happy with the results.

Richeson Gator Foam (gray)

The Richeson surface is coarser and eats up the pastels, but it does a great job of grabbing the pigment. I liked the rigid backing. Not my favorite surface, but I might try it again in the future.

UArt 500

UArt 500 does a great job of grabbing the pastels, and the grit is fine enough to allow more detailed work. This is a surface that I will probably use again in the future.

St. Armand Sabretooth (brown)

Sabretooth has a very noticeable texture that I do not like. After I did this painting I found some documentation from St. Armand that says you can sand some or all of the surface to smooth the texture.

Wallis Museum

I did this painting over a watercolor underpainting. The Wet Canvas Florals and Botanical forum's June "plant parade" challenge was to paint a peony in a loose style to give the impression of the flower (vs. more photo-realistic). If not for the challenge, I probably would have spent some time blending the colors in the peony petals. I may do that yet.

More Supplies

Towards the end of my community ed class in early March it became clear to me that 1) I really enjoyed painting with pastels and 2) I needed to invest in some "soft" pastels. I ended up buying a small set of Sennelier soft pastel half sticks. Sennelier makes very beautiful, rich, soft and smooth pastels (not to be confused with their oil pastels, a completely different beast). I figured the half sticks were the way to go because I could get a feel for them without the additional expense of full sticks.

I also wanted a more complete set of colors, so I also bought a full-stick set of Blick Artists pastels. So-called "soft" pastels actually come in various levels of hardness/softness and generally are classified as hard, medium and soft pastels. The Blick Artists would probably be placed in the medium category. I chose the Blick pastels because 1) they are very reasonably priced compared to other more well known high quality pastels and 2) they were the only ones I could find on the Blick web site that did not have California Prop 65 warnings about potentially harmful, cancer-causing, chemicals. Since I usually use an art barrier cream (Gloves in a Bottle), and I don't eat the pastels, the Prop 65 warning probably shouldn't be that big of a deal. But I figured why not try the Blick pastels and see how they work.

So far I have been very satisfied with the Blick pastels. I have found that some colors (mostly darker) are harder than others, but so far that hasn't been much of a handicap.

Now that I had the pastels I needed to determine what types of pastel support would suit my style (once I figure out what my style is). Through our instructor I found out about the Dakota Pastels web site (http://www.dakotapastels.com/pages/index-sale.aspx). Dakota offers sampler packs of both pastel papers and boards. I put in my orders for both. Now I was ready to go but still didn't know what to paint.