971.

A still life with flowers, done in pastel. This one's a little bigger than usual. Tricky things, flowers .. you have to watch out for the shape, the transparency, the colors, the edges, the layering... I for one was glad to be done with this one (before I ruined it by overdoing it).

972.

A flower pot in pastel

973.

Yet another color pencil copy of an oil painting:

Original

Copy

974.

Another color pencil copy of an oil painting

original

Color Pencil Copy

975.

A color pencil excercise in copying a masterpiece.

Here's the original Chardin oil painting titled 'Still Life with Glass Flask and Fruit' along with the color pencil copy...

976.

Three Apples

Actually it's the same apple having fun in different poses...

977.

A still life with pepper:

978.

This is the big-kahuna project from the art class. A still life that took about 5 weeks to complete. The setup:

First came a value study:

Followed by a color study:

Followed by the final painting:

Here it is hanging in a student exhibit at the academy:

979.

A still life with pear:

This wall is developing a theme of it's own:

980.

A still life with pepper:

981.

A still life with papaya:

982.

A still life with apple:

983.

Had a large old canvas lying around. I was playing around with a set of warm, high colors trying to see where they would go on their own (hoping it would turn into something abstract). This is where I ended up initially:

To be honest it wasn't aesthetically pleasing at all (to my eyes). With a little bit of pushing paint around, this is what it turned into:

A Pseudo-Savannah Scene

Kinda meh. Off it goes to a non-descript outta-sight location...

984.

Another test animation done on my iPad. Nothing spectacular...

985.

Trying out some animation software on my iPad:

986.

Another exercise at copying the masters. This time a detail from Cezanne's Still Life with Milk-Can and Apples from the Museum of Modern Art:

( The best way to view the detail in this painting is using Google Art )

Here's my attempt:

987.

An excercise to copy a painting of flowers in glass. This is the original by Eduard Manet titled 'Flowers in a Crystal Vase, 1882':

 This is my copy:

My colors are a bit off because I didnt realize the copy I was working from was off. Color is a tricky business, it turns out....

988.

Acrylics need a base, often gesso. It was interesting to discover that gesso and watercolor-crayons mix rather well. From my sketchbook:

989.

An attempt at doing a still life. Here is the original setup:

Couldnt finish it because I was having a lot of trouble with the glassware. Finally I gave up and cut out the two little parts I could finish and completed them as separate pictures.

990.

A few more acrylic exercises with objects of different reflectivity

991.

A first exercise doing a still life in acrylics using a limited palette.

Quinacridone Orange + Ultramarine + Payne's Grey

Cerulean Blue + Jenkin's Green + Payne's Grey

992.

A chance conversation led me to the Gage Academy in Seattle where I signed up for a painting class. Step 1 was to do some charcoal still life studies (this was the teachers way of checking if you could draw for nuts or not)....

Fruit and bottles



993.

Found an old box of colored inks one day that I hadnt used in over a decade. Couldnt resist the temptation to do a quick sketch with them...

994.

Another sketch from my iPad. This one, if you couldnt guess, is titled 'Marilyn'... :)

995.

A quick sketch done on my iPad using Autodesk SketchBook Pro (which is probably the best sketching software on the iPad).  

 You do need to use a capacitive stylus though since a finger doesnt cut it for sketching. Being the cheapskate that I am, I figured i'd save a few bucks by making my own capacitive stylus based on various instructions I found on you-tube. Unforunately I wasted a lot of time and in the end they didnt work or fell apart quickly, so I ended up buying a commercial one. Another lesson learnt...

996.

The previous year or two, I had been dabbling with nature photography. Some of those photos seemed to be perfect subjects for more pastels. Here's one of tulips (taken at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens):

 

And here's the resulting pastel:

I should probably take better photographs of my drawings. Looks like the camera-phone will only get me so far ...

997.

I was beginning to feel a little more confident about using pastels. Pastels are great for broad, vibrant strokes, but I was curious if they could be used for a more detailed illustration. Here is a whimsical piece titled 'Rabbit Meets Robot'.

A behind the scenes look at the making of 'Rabbit Meets Robot':

Someday this might turn into it's own children's book or animated adventure (he thought wishfully to himself)...