Neglecting my blog, but not my artventure...

My initial posts about my Pastel-a-Day adventures are posted on Facebook on my artist page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Edna-M-Kunkel-Art-and-Photography/102775209831438). This means that although I've not posted my art from day 5 or 6 on the days that they were created HERE yet on my blog, new information has been posted there. I'll catch up on posts this weekend, but if you're a reader and a Facebook member, feel free to *Like* my artist page and follow progress there.

A few things that I didn't really think of when I planned my Pastel-a-Day adventure:

1. I might not be able to work on a big or complicated piece
2. My normal style is to have things spill across several days, with a fresh perspective on each piece as the morning arrives
3. I promised myself to NOT rework a piece at least until after February 1, which means if I notice something that I can definitely repair or alter, it's a sniggly thought in the back of my head
4. I enjoy having to choose a subject matter and just build a piece. Like the work part of my life, getting a piece going (after I get past the motivational threshold) and moving isn't difficult. I struggle with that, likening that aspect of my ethic to that of a technician rather than the creative artist that I want to be.
5. Looking for subject matter that's inspirational for a given day takes time and usually has me wandering through a boatload of old photos to determine "where will I go today?"
   

Number 4: Snow Fall

Day 4 of my Pastel-a-Day endeavor involved getting myself totally in an undistracted creative mode, pulling out my favorite surface, and finding a good snow photo to serve as the reference. It's been much of a snowflakeless winter thus far in Wisconsin, which is a big disappointment for me.

Snow Fall, a soft pastel on 6x6 Pastelbord.

1. After choosing my reference photo and using mat board corners to create a square composition, I used vine charcoal on one of my favorite surfaces to quickly sketch in the main details: a foreground tree and branches and a tree line.

2. I blocked in three higher value colors for the foreground snow-covered grasses (a blue-violet, a gray-green, and a red-violet), sketched the main tree structure in with a grayish teal and a pale pink, and drew in a tree line, initially in just a dark blue-green, and filled the sky holes in with a pale greenish blue. I added a few more details by tucking in some grasses, some color variety in the distant trees, and shadows around the tree trunk and limbs.

3. Continuing with a limited palette, I've added some more texture to the side of the tree that was hit by the horizontal snowfall and the snow-covered grasses in the foreground.

4. Adding a few more variety into the tree line in the distance, higher value near whites, and a smattering of leaves on the tree and a few on the ground brings this composition to near completion. I like that I've been able to give the impression of some bright whites while using only extremely high value color and neutral sticks. My eyes are a little tired today, so I'm glad that I was able to work relatively quickly in a well-focused creative zone.

5 (finished). After an hour break at the grocery store, I repaired the sunlight on the row of trees in the background and added variety and bigger leaves to the tree in the foreground.

Day three of my pastelista journey

Today I worked on a still life, dealing with the floral masses of hydrangea and its floral heads. This one required a little bit of scrubbing and problem-solving to get to this final piece. Rough patches seem to respond well to innovative solutions. I'm betting this piece will look so much better to me after a perspective-inducing good night's sleep.

Hydrangea Still Life, soft pastel on 5.25 x 8.24 Wallis sanded paper.

1. The starting sketch looks a little bit like a very simplified duck (left) and a rabbit (right). : )

2. To tone the off-white paper, I quickly blocked in the base colors.

3. I used a brush and Turpenoid to suspend the soft pastel pigments into a liquid and brushed them into the crevices of the sanded surface.

4. I blocked in the flowers that I wanted to retain structurally throughout the composition.

5. This part involved more structural development of the focal point flowers and expanding the range of values.

6. The yellow background wasn't working for me, so I swapped it into a purple-black, which allowed me to enrich the shadow portions of the piece and do some negative shape adjustments. I became a bit frustrated at this point, cursing my choice of flower!

7. After a little rant and a subsequent break, I intentionally pulled out a blue stick that I thought was totally *wrong* for the color palette, and was thereby able to use it as a tool to better see the petals and opted to use a deep blue violet to do some more negative shape modeling of the petals. I rarely use an outlining technique like this, but it seems to work well in a complicated mass like this. Ultimately I will bring in some brighter highlights and turn some of these extremely dark outlines to thinner, broken lines.

8. With some lighter lights, the hydrangea ball in the foreground is looking pretty good. I added some more vibrant hues to the young mass at the left. I've deleted some of the mass from the ball in the background. Still not sure about that part, though. A part of me wants to make it completely disappear...

9. I wiped out the back hydrangea mass with a dark pastel, some Turpenoid, and additional cover strokes to turn it into a consistent backdrop. I then added in the curly wood of the bouquet at intentional diagonals and did some updates to the bud-ball.

10. (Finished). The bud-ball needed to go back to more of a bright green mass, so I reworked that area and did a touch or two around the painting to ensure that the colors tie together throughout the composition. I'll add a signature later and take a final photo in the sunlight. The biggest things I learned today: examine and learn a little more about the anatomy of a particular flower family before beginning the painting part and always remember to simplify things for each painting that I want to finish in a single day. Things that I've learned previously and applied today: mist flowers throughout their studio session whenever artificial lighting is used.

A second day of pastel...

Lacy Resting Places. Part 1, soft pastel on 7 x 9 storm green sanded paper (Richeson Premium). I often start by jumping right in from a photo reference and putting everything in to the piece. Here, I've selected some prominent oval shapes to include. I wiped out a few things that were misplaced with an eraser and a stiff-bristled brush. My primary goal for today is to keep things a bit more loose than I did in yesterday's project and use the paper color untouched as background color.

Part 2, soft pastel on 7 x 9 storm green sanded paper (Richeson Premium). Here I've taken advantage of my tendency to create patterns by using the inherently patterned Queen Anne's Lace flower as my focal point. It's smaller clusters occur in natural hexagon shapes, which means I can use randomized pointillism within an foreshortened hexagon to build it's structure. The companion flowers in this prairie are wild bergamot. These flowers are more like my hair--wild and curly, sticking up here and there at will--and are the controlled chaos portion of this piece.

Part 3, soft pastel on 7 x 9 storm green sanded paper (Richeson Premium). Here I've expanded on the structures of the background flowers and added some darker marks to represent some of the shadows inside the depth of the lace. The biggest plan for the next step is to increase the contras between the Bergamots and the background. I have a couple of choices here--to go toward darker values in the undergrowth or toward lighter values in the flowers. Because I really want the "lace" to be the primary focal point, I'm going to opt for adding shades. I might also use a few highlights on a couple of the purple flowers later.

Part 4, soft pastel on 7 x 9 storm green sanded paper (Richeson Premium). Darkening the undergrowth was a great way to increase the contrast between the wiry petals of the Bergamot flowers and the "storm green" of the sanded paper.

Part 5, soft pastel on 7 x 9 storm green sanded paper (Richeson Premium). In this step, I turned up the sun...bringing in brighter highlights onto the Queen Anne's lace and onto the frills of the purples flowers (plus this photo is slightly overexposed!). I'll need to cast a few shadows onto those two Bergamots tucked in under lace umbrella.

Part 6, soft pastel on 7 x 9 storm green sanded paper (Richeson Premium). I've enhanced the 3 Bergamots at the right with lighter value highlights and de-emphasized the other by using darker values, at least on the petals. I still need go a little darker for the ones under the "umbrella". Only a few more tweaks, and I can count this one as being finished.

Part 7, soft pastel on 7 x 9 storm green sanded paper (Richeson Premium). Ultimately this piece is finished (although it still needs a signature). Day 2 of my Pastel-a-Day completed! Yay-rah!

31-day-pastel-a-thon begins...

The first piece is a soft pastel composed on a sanded surface with the Smoky Mountains as my subject. Below are a set of 7 images and text that describes my progress.

Smoky Mountains. Part 1, 5.5 x 9 soft pastel on Storm (see near foreground green), a sanded Premium Pastel Surface from Richeson. I did a quick line sketch with white charcoal pencil, filled in the main shapes, and used Turpenoid and a cheap paint brush to spread color into the tooth of the paper, and used some of the pigment left on the brush to pull down some color into the background evergreen tree line (near ground triangle). The disadvantage of using white charcoal to sketch in the lines is that they remain unless you do a bit of scrubbing with the wet brush. Off to build the next layer!

Part 2, 5.5 x 9 soft pastel on Storm (see near foreground green), a sanded Premium Pastel Surface from Richeson. I've added wispy clouds to the sky and dappled in the tree-covered mountains the recede into the distance. I also realized that the peaks on my far mountains should be much less varied in height. After all, these are very old mountains! So much more work to do, and sometimes things get a little ugly before they make a turn for the beautiful. This piece is in that nether space at the moment. I've used SpectraFix to set the pigments in place. Back to the drawing board...literally!

Part 3, 5.5 x 9 soft pastel on Storm (see near foreground green), a sanded Premium Pastel Surface from Richeson. I've repaired the distant mountain contour and added colors in to the contours in between. I still need to make some atmospheric perspective adjustments, as these are the Smoky Mountains, known for a hazy appearance as the hills recede in the distance. What will the next step in the process show?

Part 4, 5.5 x 9 soft pastel on Storm (a bluish green), a sanded Premium Pastel Surface from Richeson. The foreground trees are shaping up nicely now, and the atmospheric perspective is helping push the hills further into the distance. I think I need a dinner break before continuing. Back in a bit.

Part 5, 5.5 x 9 soft pastel on Storm (a bluish green), a sanded Premium Pastel Surface from Richeson. While I had the cooler colors in the far hills, I had them too saturated. Here I've desaturated the hills in the distance with blues and purples and increased the saturation of the near hills with pure greens and yellow-greens. Because of the pointillist technique used in the mountains, this is a piece that looks better across the room than up close. After a little more tree work, I can count the first of my Pastel-a-Day pieces as finished!

Part 6, 5.5 x 9 soft pastel on Storm (a bluish green), a sanded Premium Pastel Surface from Richeson. I've reworked the trees to get them to look less like groomed holiday trees (yes, I said it) and a little more scraggly and irregular. Of course, creating irregularities is something that the pattern-based logic part of my brain fights me on every time. I've also made some minor adjustments to the far hills by using a brush to lightly blend and push the pastels into the tooth of the paper. I'm almost pleased enough to sign this one.

Finished (Part 7), 5.5 x 9 soft pastel on Storm (a bluish green), a sanded Premium Pastel Surface from Richeson. I added a couple of tweaks to the clouds, then signed this piece and am calling it a successful first piece for my 31-day-pastel-a-thon!

I count this as a good first day!

Running Into the Wind

Here's one of my practice pieces for my upcoming Pastel-a-Day adventure. See progress from start to finish on my Facebook page. More to come here, too!

Following My Pastel-A-Day Progress...

I've been doing exercises to get in shape! Read more here on this blog, follow me on Twitter (@electrikolor), and also on Facebook.

A Pastel a Day

Dear Edna,

You have the opportunity to enhance your artistic skills in a unique way during the month of January. Come rain, snow, sleet, or (apparently) 40-degree dry days, you are hereby challenged to create one pastel painting every day of the month.

You can choose the size of the painting, and whether it will be a soft pastel or an oil pastel composition -- or even a mixed media composition that uses pastel in a non-traditional manner.

You are encouraged to prepare well in advance for this adventure, or, in this case, make the decision just a few days before embarking.

You have been chosen for this activity because you are known to have supplies sufficient to take you through a month (or a year) of paintings, the desire to try new things, and the need to express yourself on paper and step away from the computer when you're not processing your digital photographs.

You are encouraged to attempt some plein air painting (perhaps from wind-protected insides of a car) and choose topics that you do not naturally gravitate towards (such as still life, for which you claim to have a certain distaste, but not an inability).

Since you have chosen to accept this challenge, be sure to do your warm up exercises for the next several days. We do not want you straining any creative part along the way.

Most of all, remember to enjoy, learn, and share your results.

Sincerely,

Your right brain

Letters to the Editor: Fostering A Safe Place to Recall Walker

Once upon a time, letters to the editor were published in newspapers when they represented a sincere opinion that affected the community. These days, of course, they have to meet the needs of editorial policy. Sometimes I agree with those policies, other times I don't. In this instance, I feel that not publishing something by a local business owner because she is running for a county office is not really a great policy.

On the other hand, this is MY blog, and I do not have the same editorial policy. Therefore, the letter below, originally sent to the Verona Press for publication, is being circulated here and on other blogs to illuminate why the shop is also allowing Recall Walker petitions to be circulated. Simply put, Erika Hotchksis believes in social justice...

Since the beginning of the recall effort in Verona I have received many messages and phone calls both in support and in opposition to Tuvalu’s participation in the recall effort. I would like to take a moment to clarify why I have made the decision to involve my local business in this issue.

Tuvalu Coffeehouse & Gallery has, since it’s opening, been all about social justice. Everything I do I do with the thought of how it will affect our community, our children, and quite honestly our world. I have set out to make a place in Verona that educates consumers and offers a family friendly environment and a socially conscious choice within our community.

I feel strongly that what is happening to the people of our state and the divisiveness that we see at the Capitol is, at its core, a social justice issue. I have, therefore, provided the recall Walker organizers in Verona a place to collect signatures where they can sit out of the cold at a table in the corner and be safe, and the people who want to sign the recall petition can sign it knowing that they are signing in a place where they and their signatures are also safe. The recall group has been very respectful of our business and our customers. They sit quietly at a table with their petitions waiting for people to come to them if they so choose.

As a customer recently wrote to me “Some might think that putting politics into your business is risky… Sometimes, separating the two is the least authentic choice. We must all go to bed at night knowing we are measured by the positions we take on a daily basis. I applaud the transparency and I know you sleep well.”

No matter the outcome, I wouldn’t change a thing. As a longtime resident of Verona, a mother to three wonderful kids, and a small business owner I have to make the best choices I am able to every day. I love that we have a safe place in Verona for people to sign. I love that I am able to stand up for what’s right with integrity and feel empowered and supported by this wonderful community! I have never been silent when I see injustice and misuse of power no matter the risk. I truly would walk away from anything where I was not able to be authentic to who I am and what I believe. This is what Tuvalu is at its core… it’s more than just a place to get a great cup of coffee.

Thank you all and Happy Holidays!

Erika Hotchkiss

Yes, I have signed the recall petitions for both Walker and Kleefish. I did it over at Tuvalu. Tuvalu has been the only place in Verona that literally reached out to me as a local artist and Verona resident to ever get involved in anything, which, in my world makes not only the business unique, but Erika's vision for the community something that I strongly support. I only wish more places in Verona would be more accepting and supportive of their respective beliefs.

It is because of who Erika is and what she believes in that I volunteered to help her campaign for Dane County Board Supervisor. Am I biased in my opinion? Yes, I am, and proud of it!

Edna

Winter Festival - Glacier Edge - Sat Dec 3 - 7 am till noon

Pancakes, books, and crafts! Saturday, December 3. 7 am to noon.

Glacier Edge Elementary School (800 Kimball Lane, Verona, WI, essentially down the street from Gray's Tied House) is hosting their Second Annual Winter Festival on Saturday, December 3rd from 7 am to noon.

Come and shop a huge Scholastic Book Fair, see and purchase crafts from local vendors and learn more about product lines available through small businesses.

A kid's craft and movie area will be staffed with adults so you can shop for the holidays. I'll be there with some goodies suitable as teacher gifts!