Red potato

Shopping early this morning: fixings for potato salad. Here is one red potato. It will soon be joined by more potatoes, celery, onion, eggs, and my special home-made boiled salad dressing. But first it posed for me, a tiny vegetable portrait.

Pastel on Tiziano grey, 7.5x7.5 cm. (3x3 in.)

Sunflower bud

Pastel and colored pencil on Tiziano sage, 10x10 cm (4x4 in)

Almost a mandala. It is amazing to watch a sunflower open up. Other flowers seem to unfold or to emerge from the bud. A sunflower literally turns itself inside out as the flowerets enlarge from the outside rim inward to the center. This one is just starting to open, the "petals" starting to take on a yellow tinge. I found it more of a challenge to paint than I expected.

Light and dark

I am struck by how the light plays against Juliet's features. So in this tiny portrait, I pushed the contrast to extremes. I am delighted to discover that somehow it enhances the sweetness of her smile. I am entranced by her smile anyway, since she is my grand-daughter!


Pastel on Tiziano pearl, 8x11 cm (3x3.4 in)

Pathside

It's been cool all day, and late this afternoon, the sun came out long enough to play the greens next to the brick path leading to my front door, and highlight the newly blooming evening primrose. A quick glance out the window by my easel-- and another of my tiny pieces.

Soft pastel on Tiziano pearl, 7.5x7.5cm (3x3 in)

Sister-in-law

Soft pastels on Tiziano paper, 23x30 cm (9x12 in)

A quick sketch of my sister-in-law, in a rare moment of repose (I swear she never stops moving!). I am not sure I will work on this one much more-- I like how the rawness of it seems to capture Bobbi's moment of quiet. So I may just clean it up a bit and let it be. We'll see.

Tulip seed cases

After several weeks visiting relatives (LOTS of relatives) on the other coast, and taking the red eye flight back east, followed by a two hour drive home, you'd think the first thing I'd do is hit the sack, but no. Might as well stay up; easier to get back on eastern time that way.

The tulips were in full bloom when I left, and I should have just clipped them. By the time I got back I had nearly mature seed cases. Not good for the bulbs, but they are intriguing and interesting against the later flowers, so I decided to try capturing their beauty. At least that's what this started as, and they are still there, in a different way.

Soft pastel on sage Tiziano with pumice ground

14x14cm (5.5x5.5 in)

The first try looked muddy, so I scumbled it a bit, tried again, realized that the vision I had in mind was not going to happen, so I just went for the color. It was fun and spontaneous, and I think somehow caught a little more of the feeling of the seed pods than the refined version I had in mind. This is more how I experience the seeing of things. Guess being mentally fried made me cut through all the conventions that usually take me a while to let go of.

A friend of mine saw it and had a hard time putting it down. So now it's hers. And I have a beautiful monoprint of hers hanging next to my computer where I can see it every day.