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.