Finished Pastels

I have been busy, unfortunately not with the Blue Doors oil paintings.

Both my sons have a birthday coming up and I wanted to do something for them.  It is difficult and costly to try shipping framed artwork as I am worried about glass breakage and also worry that a canvas could get punctured during shipping so I have been limiting my gift sending to pastels, which I then have to spray with fixative, which slightly changes the painting.

Oh well, sometime I will try shipping a canvas and protect it really well and just see what it would cost to ship.

Anyway I decided to do a picture of my dads old 1953 Chevrolet 3/4 ton truck for my oldest son.  When he was little he always used to say that this truck was going to be his when he got his drivers license.  When my parents sold their farm stuff at an auction sale when they decided to retire, this truck was sold, so my son never got to drive it.  I should qualify that by saying, to my knowledge anyway, you never know what grandpa and kids get up to when mom is not looking lol.

The only picture that I have of the old truck is a very old black and white one and very blurry.  Not good; but I tried anyway.

Here is the photo of the truck that I have:

Here is the chalk pastel painting that I did for my oldest son:

I was in a quandary about what to do for my youngest sons birthday which is 3 weeks after the oldest ones birthday.
He has been teaching himself to play guitar, so I finally decided to do a chalk pastel of a guitar for him.

Here it is:

Entitled:  WAITING

My sister, who also has many memories of dads old truck, liked the photo I posted of the one that I had done for my son, so I decided to do another one for her birthday which is coming up in June.
So here is 1953 Chevrolet 3/4 ton pickup once again:

Let me know what you think of these.

NOW I have to get back to working on the Blue Doors oils that are staring at me accusingly.

Have a good weekend.

Chad Framed

I had posted about doing a pastel painting of my friends cat Chad.  I had just done it for practice so I gave it to her as a gift.
Well she ran out of time before she left for Canada and wanted it framed as I had not sprayed it with fixative.  She was worried that the humidity here in the summer might damage it without a frame.
We went to get it framed one day; but misjudged the stores siesta hours and they were closed.
She left it with me and I have been meaning to get it framed and decided I better get it done before it gets hot and humid; although our place with the A/C on might be OK for it.
Anyway to make a long story short he is now framed.
Frame, mat, mounting, anti glare glass total cost 375 pesos or about $29.00 dollars CAD.  Finished size is approx: 17 inches x 21 inches.

 

Second Horse Finished

I finally finished my second horse painting, so they both are done and are hanging on our walls.
I am not as happy with the second one as I was with the first; but then they are very different views of the animal.  The first one was more of a close up of the head; whereas this one is the whole body set further back into the background.

Here it is:  The Veinto Dos

In class I will now be working on the second of the set of 3 Blue Door paintings.  I basically didn't do anything in class for 2 sessions as I was waiting for the fellow to finish building my canvas as I wanted a very specifac size and depth.  I wanted the 2 smaller ones to be exactly 1/2 the size of the main one.  I finally picked them up from him last Thursday and have transferred my drawing onto 1 of them so am ready to go for class on Tuesday.

At home I have been running around doing stuff and haven't been doing much on the first Blue Door painting either.  I kind of blocked in the green for the vines; but other than that haven't done much of anything on it.
Here is how it looks now.  A ton of work to do on it yet.

Favorite Things

First of all Happy Valentines Day to all.  May your day be wonderful.

A couple of my favorite things are old doors and the colour blue, now if you put those 2 things together you know I am going to sit up and take notice.

Way back in 2006 we stayed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA for a couple of weeks.  We did the usual tourist things of going to museums, galleries, etc..  For me the best thing we did there was explore Old Town Albuquerque.  We both loved it and returned there several times.

While we were wandering, naturally as any tourist does I was snapping pictures.  A couple of my favorite photos were of, yup you guessed it, old blue doors.

I kept those photos thinking that someday I would blow them up and frame them; but never did.

When we first came to Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico, where we have now lived for over 6 years, we spent a lot of time wandering around exploring our new home and I took another photo of an old blue door.

So I have had these photos hanging around for 6 years or so and still have done nothing with them.

When I was digging through my photos for something different to paint, in other words something non animal I came across these old photos and decided to do my favorite of them.  Then I dug around some more and re-found the other 2 and decided to do a set of 3 blue doors.

The one I have started, in oils, and have the base coat blocked in on will the be biggest one as it has 2 double doors which are closed.  Of the other 2 one also has 2 doors; but 1 is open and the other only has 1 door.
So eventually, if I don't get sidetracked or tired of the project there will be a series of 3 blue doors.  Considering how slowly I work and how much tiny detail there is on these doors it may take me years lol.

Here is the beginning of the first and biggest one, it is approximately 40 cm. x 60 cm. x 5 cm..  The other 2 will be approx. 30 cm x 38 cm. x 5 cm. and will hang one on each side of the bigger one.
Sorry the photo is really crooked.

This is a copy of my photo of the door.

Have a good day.

Latest Project

I took some time off over December and January and am just getting back into painting again now.  I know lazy; but I just wasn't feeling like it so didn't.  I think I needed a break.
One of my classmates had emailed me telling me that I needed to talk to the teacher about an exhibition starting tomorrow, so I got busy and more or less finished the one horse picture that I had started.  It still needs a few finishing touches; but I took it down today and the teacher approved it and had it hung up before I had finished paying for the next semesters classes.
I think I will still have him do a longer critique of it and give me some pointers on a few finishing touches that I think it might need; but for the moment it is hanging in the exhibition.

It is done in oils on a wooden "canvas" then covered with tin foil and painted on.



EL VIENTO

Bird of Paradise Flower

In the spring I had taken a photo of a Bird of Paradise blooming in my friends garden, a portion of this photo is my blog header.

I had started painting this photo in July during the summer session class at the Casa de la Cultura.  The class was only for the month of July and I work slowly so did not get it finished.  I brought it home and because I was busy with some other projects it just sat on the easel.

When I finished the Hummingbird painting in class I decided to take the Bird of Paradise back to class and finish it off.  I did and have now finished it.

One more project done.

I took the photo of Zoe and this one too early in the morning and it was a little too bright yet; but was away later, so it is what it is.

Here it is, click on image to see a larger version.  Bird of Paradise done in oils on canvas.

I have now started a new project both at class and at home.  I was going to do an oil painting of a church in a smaller town in our state of Sonora; but the best laid plans often go astray.  One day I happened to show Roy some photos of horses, that a relative had sent in an email.  He loved 2 of them and suggested that I do them in the same technique as the Hummingbird oil painting.  So...... I am now doing a head  pose at class and a full body pose at home, both in the same technique and both the same size.  It should be interesting to see what comes out of them both.  I will keep the blog updated with views as they progress.

Finishing Off Some Pieces

I finally finished off the Pastel Painting that I had started of my sisters dog Zoe.  I think she is a Golden Retriever, sorry not good with remembering dog breeds.
I have been waiting to send the Pastel painting of my daughter in laws cat Spaz to her as I wanted to stick them both together in one package.  Being busy with stuff for class and life in general Zoe seemed to keep getting put onto the back burner.
I finally got sick of her looking at me and decided to finish her and get her sent away.
For some reason I had the most trouble with her that I have had with any of the animals I have done so far.  I am not really happy with the finished results; but am sick of trying to "fix" her so off she will go in the mail.

As always just click on the picture to get a larger view.