At the pastel class I am teaching in St Andrews we have been looking at the work of other painters we admire. Choosing a particular painting we like then doing a painting in that style. I chose Monet a favourite of mine. I first did a study of La Zaan a Zaandam 1871 then I looked at some reference photos which I had and did this seascape. This is a detail from the painting.
This is a study I did in preparation for the class I am taking at St Andrews Art Club. The first two weeks we will be concentrating on doing tonal paintings. The snow covered ground we have had lately has been a great source of inspiration. On days it was too cold to paint outside, my camera came to the rescue. The drawing for this painting was done with charcoal. The number of pastels used were only about five.
Traigh Eais means ‘Beach of the Waterfall’ in Gaelic. This is a wonderful beach on Barra. It is difficult to put into words what I feel about the beach so hopefully my painting speaks for me. I did this study for a larger studio piece that I plan to do soon.
I got some Sennelier oil pastels and this was my first painting to try them out. This is based on an autumn picture and I used a bit of imagination as to what it would look like snow covered.
This is the painting I did for a workshop at Winchburgh Art Club. I enjoyed the opportunity to share with this group of artists.
Just finished painting in the studio when I noticed how beautiful the sky was looking. I grabbed some blue Canson paper and a box of pastels so as I could paint the view. I used charcoal for the darks to get this very quick 15 min sketch done. It was amazing how fleeting the sky was. When I had finished it had completely changed and there was very little pinky orange to the sky.
This is the painting that I completed at Stirling Art Club demonstration. The Art Club is friendly and made me feel very welcome, I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did!
Stirling Art Club have invited me to do a painting demonstration tomorrow evening. I have done a study in colour and one in black and white, I am doing the painting with a limited range of pastel colours. The colours I plan to use are in the mixed chart on the left hand side. In the middle is the outlined sketch for the demonstration.
I have recently finished this portrait as a commission. It is mostly conte with just a touch of soft pastels in the final strokes.
I was asked to do a demonstration at Largo Bay Arts Society. Here is the painting that I did last night, not quite completed. The orange ground is showing through in the foreground rocks.