Wednesday, June 27, 2012

polka dots / prometheus / pillow

my weekend consisted of:
Saturday
FIRST: a trip to the Dr's office, followed shortly by a trip to Dick Blick Seattle, where I found these little gems :




don't they just make your mouth water? 
You can get some here if you don't have time to swing into Dick Blick's.

I also picked up some La Grand Sennelier Oil Pastels -these puppies are really BIG! "At ¾" diameter × 5" long, each of these pastel sticks is equivalent to eight regular size sticks." quoted from here: http://www.dickblick.com/products/sennelier-oil-pastels-grand/

I can't wait to try them out on my next pastel drawing, which, coincidentally is going to be BIG too  :
I got black, prussian blue, and a transparent blender - this is the image from Dick Blick's web site just so you know what I'm talking about.

I picked up an American Easel brand wood panel to work on as well. I want to try out a firmer surface than canvas. Made in the USA too - BONUS!
This image is also from DB's web site - I got the largest one they had in stock at the store which is 18" x 24"





NEXT: 
Lunch with my sister in law....here we had a nice long "catch up" We haven't had a lot of time together over the last couple of years because she has been working on and has just earned her master's degree from Seattle University - we are really proud of her :)  :)  Yay Hannah!!


SPOILER ALERT-if you haven't seen Prometheus  yet but plan to skip down to "Finally, ..."
trip into outer space with my DH and brother in law: we watched Prometheus....I really enjoyed it but must agree with my friend Ray Chi that there are a few major annoyances and a few too many WTF moments.
What was the opening scene about anyway?
Why did these so-called scientists have no thought of contaminating the temple where they found the giant face?
What's up with the doofus taking his helmet off right away?? sheesh - I need a little more SCIENCE in my Science Fiction - this is Ridley Scott after all...
just sayin'...

 Finally, during our weekly grocery shopping trip to Fred Meyer I found this lovely, that now lives on my loveseat:





Made in the USA too - woop woop!!

and that was my weekend....  :)

-Dawn

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

new journal pages

drawn from one of my photos. I like this guy.

I don't like the way this one turned out BUT it's another lesson for me to focus on what Lisa taught me and for me to remember to not get wound up about drawing people.

 had a hankering for a poppy so I looked up some photos in Google image search and just went from that with Portfolio water soluble oil pastels...

Also from one of my photos - Chicago skyline in the evening -slightly blurry....this one is not done yet


Also from a photo of a dark red leaf among pale colored rocks at the beach. This one isn't done either - I am going to watercolor the drawing to give it depth.
What have you been journaling lately?

Monday, June 11, 2012

first big painting

Here's my first big painting I have ever done....
I gave it to my husband as a gift since he is so supportive of my art and just basically all around wonderfully awesome...he says he likes it......




the trees are light molding paste painted with Golden Stainless Steel acrylic paint. I was trying to use it up because it has one of those orange "This gives you cancer in California" warnings on the side of the tube...but the more I used it the more I liked it.
so I said it will be OK to use it if I put gloves on first and don't spray it or use it in a brush that I will need to rinse out...