Monday Morning Pastel Drawing and a Great Party

"Pitcher with Fruit"

12" x 14" Pastel

 

I was quite pleased as I worked on this that Bob  just gave me one little suggestion and moved on. He often will sit down and work a bit on a trouble spot to point us in the right direction. I think I learned a little more about rendering with last week's work with black on white on a single apple. Bob often takes us back to the basics. The tricky part is the transition areas between the core shadows and the areas receiving more direct light. Get it right and the subject will look three dimensional.

 

 

Green-yellow apple

Black conte

 

 

Red apple

Black conte

 

I attended the Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society holiday party, which is always mid-January. This is an all volunteer effort and I can't say enough about how well they organized the event. Everyone is expected to help, so I joined the setup crew. 

 

SCVWS setup crew

 

The theme was "Breathing Plein Air." Hence the wonderful suns and clouds and the very creative center pieces. You see the beginning of the plein air display in the background. That includes paintings done plein air and many travel/plein air journals. I displayed two works from Croatia and one done with our paintsites group.

 

 

Centerpieces: Sit down and paint the beautiful California landscape!



 

 

We rent space, so bulletin boards needed some work. Friend and fellow critique group member Linda  did these wonderful paintings featuring artists  outdoors. The left one is a David Hockney-esque approach using an I-Pad. (Many of us have seen the terrific Hockney exhibit at the DeYoung in San Francisco.) The right one honored our 49ers. The area is used for a painting exchange, a voluntary activity.

 



 

Artists at work on the community painting.

 

Friend Brad organized the community painting and was most creative. One featured many fish to paint. The other was circular forms. These are auctioned off along with donated paintings and other items. Friend Valerie did an amazing job of raising $1100 on the raffle to benefit a local school for disadvantaged children.

 

I chatted with friend Myrna Wacknov who just received her signature membership in AWS!