Two easy pieces

The light has been lousy today, changing from bright sun to overcast to dark and stormy within moments. I'd intended to do the setup for a large piece I'd been planning. But I need steady, even light to do that. So I played again at doing little studies. This is actually good for me, besides being fun. Here are two: a small pastel, and an ink and watercolor in my littlest sketchbook. They are actually almost the same size.

The pastel: Flower Jumble, an impression of the flowers just outside my painting bay. Very very quick, in the ten minute period between sun and downpour. Daisies, bluebells, beebalm, celosia, daylilies, hosta, coneflower. Yes, all blooming at once. Vermont's season tends to compress everything together.

Pastel on Tiziano sage, 12x9 cm. (4.75x3.5 in.)

The watercolor: Summer window. An informal ink sketch of my southeast-facing dining room window, with impressionistic watercolor washes. Yes, it sort of looks like this. Sort of. The window looks out at a tangle of overgrown lilac bush, giving the room a delightfully mysterious feel.

Mixed media on 93# sketch paper, 9x15 cm. (3.5x6 in.)

Self-portrait

Back to pastels. A quick little sketch of me this time, loosely based on a photo taken by a friend. I'm getting ready to do a portrait of my friend and her husband, so this just seemed fair. Just for fun, I decided to mess with the colors to see what would happen. Only four colors, loose strokes, rough edges. Some mistakes along the way, but I found I like working this way. I might use it as a study for a larger work later on.

Pastels and colored pencils on Tiziano cream, 11x11 cm. (4.25x4.25 in.)

Little cove at Bayview Park

Watercolor on Arches 300 gsm, 16.5x24 cm (6.5x9.5 in.)

For the last week the weather here in New England has been hot and horridly humid, with thunderstorms and heavy downpours every day. I sorted through the photos my sister-and-law and I had taken during my visit to the NW in May, and a photo of this rocky outcrop caught my eye. This is at Bayview Park, west of the Anacortes ferry landing. When I lived in Washington, this was a favorite place of mine.

Though the painting is a conventional landscape, I like the peaceful feeling and memories it carries. Painting it gave me a chance to work at retrieving some lost skills and practice a few new ones, while pretending I was still there, with a cool ocean breeze in my face.

Rhubarb pie

On a sort-of challenge by a fellow artist who also has a penchant for drawing what he eats, I did this little pastel of a rhubarb pie I baked during a too brief one-day period of coolness earlier this week. Knowing the pie wouldn't last long enough to paint "live", I took photos while it was still intact. Nothing is left now but the pan. But here's the evidence.

Soft pastel on Tiziano cream, 10x12 cm (4x4.75 in)

The other side of the hill

This little piece started out with the title, which just popped into my head. I know why: there's a personal symbolism at work here. But then I had to come up with something visual to express it. It's a lovely day today, sunny and just warm enough to be comfortable. And I live in Vermont. So here is a Vermont hillside in the early morning sun. On the other side of the hill, far far away, is home.

pastel on Tiziano sage, 10x10 cm. (4x4 in)

Sometime in October

watercolor on Arches 300, 25x25 cm. (10x10 in)

The last couple of days have been downright cold. I woke up to temps in the 40s. A bit of a shock after the hot humid weather of the last couple of weeks. I even had the furnace on! Perhaps that is what inspired this watercolor, which started out to be a summer rain... instead it is a misty autumn rain with late afternoon sunlight breaking through the clouds. Ah, symbolic: the seasons confused, and so am I.