Rhaja, the Chocolate Lab

Last week I finished up a workshop on using colored pencil on Drawspace and given by Artist, Jeanette Jobson. Jeanette is a marvelous teacher and I learned so much through her guidance. I just hope I can remember all I learned and put it into practice. There were so many talented artists in the workshop including my dear friends Kay and Clara who have been so instrumental in encouraging me to try new mediums such as acrylics and now colored pencil.

Currently, I'm in the midst of our Prehistoric Card Trade and will be posting the cards as soon as the trade ends in early December. Afterwards, I may well make a run at pastels.

Woman with Curls

The past two weeks I've been experimenting with colored pencils and drawing the "Woman with Curls" is the result. I never intended to make this a finished work but after trying several blending techniques I added a background and threw on the outfit to make it "finished". My learning is never finished and I enjoyed learning the blending techniques symbolized here.

Under the Sea Cards

During the month of October I have been drawing cards for our card trade on drawspace. After much consideration I decided upon a "shell" theme and began painting shells with colored pencils and acrylics. These certainly gave me some challenges in using both mediums and I'm still trying to use both with some degree of effectiveness. I have to thank all of my friends at drawspace for their encouragement and guidance. There are many great artists there and I'm so privledged to have their encouragement. Here are my shells for Under the Sea card trade.

Under the Sea Cards

Mary in hat at Chincoteage Island

Here is my first painting in acrylics which is of my wife, Mary in her very large straw hat on the beach at Chincotage Island this summer. We had a lovely vacation as described on my June post here. Mary got rather irritated at me as we walked along the surf because I kept asking her to pose for me to take pictures with my digital camera. I thought the light was just perfect shinning from her back and highlighting her beautiful tan and very large straw hat. I found much of my attention working on this painting was on mixing the colors to get them the colors I wanted. I plan to pay closer attention to values and shading on my next attempt with acrylic. It was soooo much fun and very relaxing.