Paula’s Blog

I have been working on a portrait of my grandson Colin for the last three weeks. I started taking some pictures after a few days but you can see some of the progress. The finished project will end up in Atlanta I suspect. The plaid shirt was a challenge. I am don’t have this portrait thing mastered yet but I am determined. Be sure to check back to see other portraits in the future. I do love to do them!

I also have been working on a couple of other CP projects at the same time as Colin’s portrait. I will post an update on those in coming weeks. One is of Caitlin, my grand daughter, and another is a scene with a gas station and old car. I also still am working on the portrait of my mother. So stay tuned.

Well, I think I have finished Carolyn’s granddaughter. I might check the values one more time but I’m afraid if I do more, I will mess it up! What do you think?

That’s a question I need to figure out. I guess if you have a blog, you have to post! Since the last post, my husband Bob and I traveled to Atlanta to see the grandkids. We were supposed to travel on to Memphis to see my mom but Bob didn’t feel well so we came home.

I have been working on two new portraits. The first is of my mom, Loretta. She doesn’t like the reference photo much but I do. I am working on white stonehenge paper. Right now I am busy working on the background (the part I dislike doing) before I tackle the face and hand.

The second project is Carolyn Smoak’s granddaughter. Carolyn sent me the picture of her granddaughter at the beach. I decided to just do part of the image for my portrait. I am using colored pencils on grey pastel board this time. Pastel board really “eats up” your pencils but I like the results on this support.

I will try to post at least once a week on this blog. I guess I better put a reminder on my calendar. Bye for now.

I have been working on my first colored pencil portrait for a couple of weeks now. Tonight I finished it. It is done with Prismacolor pencils on grey Canson Mi-Tentes Pastel paper. I used Ann Kullberg’s skin tone value scheme which seems to work well. I do miss “deco pink” even though I never owned a deco pink pencil of my own. The recommended substitution is not really the same. I hope Caitie’s parents like this portrait.

I think I would like to try this one again on white stonehenge paper.  I would expect the skin tones would be brighter.

I spent yesterday finishing my “yorkie” from my Gretchen Evans Parker colored pencil class. It turned out alright but I probably won’t want to do another dog for a while. I found the dog hair to be difficult. I blame part of that on not having done the drawing and I had difficulty interpreting where the darks, medium and light tones should be placed. Also this project was done on 140 cold pressed watercolor paper and I’m not sure I like working on paper that is that “rough.” I’m posting both the picture that we worked from and my finished work. Oh yes, that is watercolor (with colored pencil)

Hello world. This is my first venture into “blogging” and I am looking forward to the adventure. The focus of this blog will be my experiences in the world of fine art. I am an artist in Columbia, South Carolina and my mediums of interest are watercolor, acrylic and colored pencil. Right now I am concentrating my efforts on colored pencil. I had my introduction to colored pencils with Ann Kullberg, Nicole Caulfield and Gretchen Evans Parker on a seven day cruise in April 2008. Since then I have been obsessed with all things pencil. So I will be talking about colored pencil a lot!

My first completed colored pencil project was this cup of grapes (done on the cruise).  It was done on pastel board and took about 10 hours to complete.   I was very pleased with the outcome and have been buying supplies and trying out techniques ever since.   Gretchen Evans Parker held a workshop last week in Lexington, SC.  In six lessons, we “painted” marbles and a yorkie puppy.  As soon as I finish the puppy, I’ll put him up for all to see.  I found “hair of the dog” to be extremely difficult.

More later.  Bye for now.