Car Show and Wine Festival - New Work

                     1954 MG TF Landscape  12 X 16 Colored Pencil on Ampersand Pastelboard

I finished this piece last Wednesday just in time to get it photographed, varnished and framed for our local British Car Club Car Show at New Kent Winery this past weekend.  We have and arts and craft area in which I show my art.  My husband and I are members of the club but currently our 1953 MG TD is in many parts and pieces as it undergoes a total renovation.  So until it's completely done and road worthy I draw other great cars from our club.  This one is our club president's car and it certainly is a beauty.  (our TD is much the same style)

Creating this work involved a few changes to the original photo so I thought I'd show you what I had to work from.  The day the photo was taken in Aug. 2011 was very sunny and a typical VA warm humid one.  The meeting was during the mid day when sun was not the best for photos.

I removed the large white tent behind the car on the right and added more of the vineyards like on the upper left.  I chose to create a more fall-ish coloring starting on the trees since our show is a fall show and also to add some warmth to all the greens in the reference.  The photo made the car look so much blacker of a green than it really is, due to the lighting on this day.  Working on the sanded surface helped me quickly create the gravel surface, by just skimming over the surface with Prismacolor sticks and using some stippling with CP's.  I went for a warmer gravel than in the photo to keep color harmony in my work.  Being a slave to the photo is not always a good thing, so remember to compose your piece to make a better painting than photo.   As you can see the sky was a complete wash out in the photo so I made this one up from all of my observations of skies and clouds.  Mental photographs are a great resource and you always have them in your head.  All you have to do is take the time to really see some of the great skies we take for granted.

The show was a great success with over 250 classic European cars.  And I made some great contacts for Car Portraits!  Which is really just a still life in a landscape.  Enjoy your colorful day and next on to a new piece from my Provence Trip.

   

Continuing the Backlit Series

                                                               Backlit Kiwi  6 X 12

Colored Pencil on Ampersand Pastelboard again, this is the same size as my Backlit Citrus piece and will be framed the same. (A black 2.5" frame with gold band on the inside)    The series will have one more this size in it, stay tuned for # 4 and one more in the 6 X 18 size #5.  The series will make their debut just in time for the fall art show season.   Although I have just finished 2 other works not in the series, and will post them soon, the sequels may get put on the back burner until I can get a few of my France trip pieces done in time for the group show.

So I'm off to finish spraying this with UV Varnish and then to frame.   
Enjoy your colorful day!

Provence Trip and a few Plein Airs finished

                                                   Lourmarin Plein Air Study 5 X 7

 

                                                   Roussillon Plein Air Study 5 X 7

Well finally I've scanned two of the Plein Air pieces done almost completely on site.  Both are on
Ampersand Pastelboard this first one on white and the 2nd one on the green pastelboard.  I prefer the white as the green or colors make bright whites a chore.   The Lourmarin turret turned into a home was completed with a underpainting of Watercolor Colored Pencils (Caran D'Ache) with layered  Premier Prismacolors completed on top.  Before starting the piece I photographed the scene and did a quick graphite study for composition purposes in my sketch book.   (I tried to scan it but the sketch doesn't want to show up well, sorry.)  I used the wc cp's to quickly tone the background area leaving the sky untouched.  When the wc cp was dry which happened quickly on site because of the dry warm day in July.  I then worked the sky.  Wanting to capture the atmosphere from morning haze still in the Luberon mountains behind.  Working small in Plein Air cp has become a must for my getting near completion in one day, but the sanded surface helps work much more quickly.

The Roussillon piece was started on a very windy morning sitting in the parking lot across from this hillside town.  Roussillon is where natural sienna pigments are found in the ground and the hues are amazing.  I did not do a composition sketch before starting this, nor did I do a WC CP underpainting, just straight Prismas onto the board.  Because this board was green to start with I mapped out a sketch with white cp lightly to build the drawing.  The day was so windy I had to leave halfway done and finish back at the hotel.  Building the colors due to the green Ampersand base coat, first with white.  Final finishing came when I came back to the states, but mainly tweaks and small details.  There was so much to get into this small 5 X 7, but the feeling of the village and it's colorful earth pigments is there. 

So there you have it, a recap of 2 of the pieces I did while on my France Plein Air Trip.  Colored pencil really is better thought of as a sketchbook media when on site.  But when you use a sanded surface, work small and use an underpainting of WC pencils things can move faster.  Perhaps not as fast as other media, but getting a saturated look is possible.  When wanting to work bigger I still use pastels, but  I do not love the mess I create nor are my pastel skills highly evolved.   And taking pastels on this long France trip would have meant more weight for my luggage.

Soon to post my Central VA British Car Show piece, just have to get it photographed.   Have a colorful Day!
      

Framing and getting started in showing your work.

I know it's been a little while since I posted here, trying to get my life back in order after the trip to France took a little while.  I have much to post here so look for several up coming with a few France trip Plein Air pieces and newly finished work.  But first I had a question from a student asking about framing for just getting started in showing or competing with your work.  By the time I answered her I had what looked like a good blog post so I'm copying my answer here for anyone alse who may want to know.  I wrote to her:

Framing and getting started in showing your work whether it's in competition shows or galleries, or for jurying into art groups, can be one of the most difficult decisions for an artist. I've done it myself and many other artists start the same way.   You first frame things for yourself/home/friends.  Then if you enter a competition or jury process, you have to take into consideration what their requirements are.  Many have distinct regulations, such as the CPSA (Colored Pencil Society of America) and other large shows require plexiglass for glazing to minimize breakage issues.  They also stipulate simple lines for frames or no heavily carved ones.  Neutral matting, suggesting a minimum of 2"  margin with 3" being the norm and other criteria. 

At BAAA (Bon Air Artists Assoc. my local art group) some on our jury team believe you should have all 5 pieces in similar or like framing, along with the simple lines and neutral matting.  I believe many artists jurying in for the first time are not going to reframe something on the chance they get in to the group, especially if this is their first jury in attempt.  But in laying out your display for the jury process or show, you can place like frames together and group the display.  Like if you had some gold frames, then some black with gold trim, and then a dark chocolate/expresso frame may make the layout look OK. 

If you have a piece that was done say in a purple mat for a special room but a basic frame, I would re-mat the piece with an off white or neutral mat to jury in or show.  I've been on the jury committee and this person had a bright green matted piece and purple mat one mixed in with others, well lets just say it didn't go over well with the committee. 

Many of us start out with a mixture of finishes, or styles that change over time.  Richmond for some time now has been a gilded frame town.  But things are changing here to match other areas of the country.  Many of my professional artist friends along with myself, reevaluate our framing frequently.  Most can't afford to completely redo them so we figure out a way to make a gradual conversion to a switch.  And of course it never fails, I'll find a great frame I'm changing to, only to find out the company has discontinued that style or color/shade.  As starving artists or new to selling, we may buy on sale at local shops, as we're testing our worth in the art sales arena.  But eventually we learn to standardize and realize you can't frame for every taste.  Neutral in all realms works well for a client, judge or gallery to evaluate the merit of an artwork.  Letting the art speak for itself is my motto.  But I do believe on not skimping on quality when it comes to framing.  I try to give my clients a good value quality frame.  Except if they specify a certain frame or ask for it not to be framed, although I do not like to sell unframed work at shows.   I have given a frame away just so the sold artwork had a safe vehicle in which to be transported to a clients home.  

Besides the fact that many clients choose to re-frame a piece for their decor, working in standard sizes for mats and frames makes this framing thing much less of a daunting task.  Sometimes you can pop one out of the frame and pop it into another more suitable if you work in standardized sizes.  Of course I learned how to cut my own mats and do my own framing to keep the cost of framing a piece low and the value high on a finished work.  Do I like to cut mats NO, but hey it's all part of owning your own business as I see it.  Or until you make it big with high sales volume and big prices tags $$$$$ then you can have it all professionally done.   One of the reasons I have moved to working almost exclusively on Ampersand pastelboard is the no mat, no glass is needed.  They hang like oil paintings making self framing easier and allowing for quick frame changes.   Inevitably a frame can become damaged by dragging it to shows or in shipping to competitions so then it's always good to re-frame in a your new style keeping your exhibit cohesive. 

I do have a few high priced framed pieces in my private collection that I may never sell or that I will re-frame should I decide to enter in a show or to sell. 

Oh by the way, she also asked if it was OK to use complementary colors for a mat.  Since we have talked in class about using complementary colors I needed to make sure what her understanding of complementary was and to be clear on my answer to her I asked her what she meant.  For the rest of you I thought I'd make clear the differences. 

The dictionary definition of complementary is: 
complementary |ˌkämpləˈment(ə)rē|
adjective
1 completing; forming a complement : backyard satellite dishes and the complementary electronic components.
• (of two or more different things) combining in such a way as to enhance or emphasize each other's qualities : three guitarists playing interlocking, complementary parts.

While the definition of complementary colors is:  
complementary colors
plural noun
colors directly opposite each other in the color spectrum, such as red and green or blue and orange, that when combined in the right proportions, produce white light. The effect is not the same when mixing paints.



If she meant "this compliments you artwork in like colors".   Neutral usually does show well, off white, white, tan, light grey, black, brown, etc....are good choices.   If she meant complementary as in the first definition above my answer is the same.  I hope she didn't mean complementary colors as in the second definition.  Although this might work for a decorator or in a special room this would not be a good choice for framing if exhibiting in shows galleries or for a jury in process.

Well there you have it, framing per Gloria.  Have a colorful day!