An interesting exercise

This piece is 18x24 inches on suede matte board. I did it in my Thursday morning group. The still life set-up presented an interesting problem. The gourd is very close in value and color to the crock. This picture doesn't show it well but it turned out that the only way I could make the thing work was to warm up the gourd and cool down the crock. That provided a little separation.

The suede matte board is nicce to work on for quick studies because it really grabs the pastels. It's also very cheap. There's always some around a frame shop. It's the center that drops out when they cut a suede matte for a framing job. It comes in some very interesting colors. This one is a deep burgundy. It also comes in black ... in case you feel compelled to do an Elvis or a bull fighter.

An old barn

Why does everyone paint old barns? I discovered the reason on this piece ... they're fun to paint. You can mess up the perspective and put a sag in the roof and everything still looks OK. In figuritive work the slghtest error in drafting is immediately apparent.

I painted this in one session over several hours. It's oil on stretched canvase, mostly brush work with some knife work on the barn. I'm letting it rest for a couple of weeks before sign it. I may tweek it a little to emphasize the direction of the light.

An International diaster

I found this old truck abandoned in a field a few miles from here. It's an International from the early 60's. International was better known for making tractors but they made pick ups for a few years. I don't ever recall hearing a kind word about their trucks.

I did this piece on Art Spectrum Colourfix using Nupastels. I didn't use any soft pastels. As you can imagine, the grill was a pain to do.