The Nitty Gritty

Not generally one to back down from a challenge, I've been working on figuring out how to handle pastels on slightly "grittier" sanded paper. My first attempts were ragged and I gave up perhaps a bit too quickly. Part of it was probably related to my failure to use blending tools and ending up with very sore fingers! So this week I've revisited the coarser grit papers to try some different techniques, with a combination of finger blending, applying barrier cream to my hands and/or wearing gloves, and the use of tools such as blending stumps. Smoothly and thoroughly blending a background color seems to make an easier surface for painting (at least for me!), but the coarse grit still holds the pastels nicely, I've found. This method also seems to help me work a little bit more loosely with the top layers, which is something I've struggled with and I'm really trying to improve on that.

© 2013 Tammy Kaufman - Pioneers - soft pastels on 500 sandpaper 4.5" x 5.5"

I've been using a combination of semi-hard pastels for earlier layers and finer details, and soft pastels for the looser top layers. I'm finding that I like the textured appearance the rougher sandpaper provides to grasses, trees and even clouds when I apply the top layers of pastels very lightly.

© 2013 Tammy Kaufman - Prime Time - soft pastels on Uart 240 sanded paper 6" x 6"

I also decided to try a couple of practice sessions using a monochromatic color palette on my sandpapers. First, I used only blues, leaving the dark charcoal grey of the sandpaper as the background color.

© 2013 Tammy Kaufman - Tangled Up In Blue - soft pastels on 500 sandpaper 4.5" x 5.5"

Next up was greys, again on the darker background. These pastels are all grey tones but interestingly I noticed just how strikingly different monochromatic colors can look depending on the shades placed next to them.

© 2013 Tammy Kaufman - Selene's Joy - soft pastels on 1000 sandpaper 4.5" x 5.5"

I'm continuing to enjoy learning pastels and am finding that sanded surfaces are incredibly versatile, offering a very nice range of effects, and experimenting with them is a lot of fun - I feel like a kid in a candy store!

Things Are Getting Sketchy!

Since picking up a couple of nice watercolor sketchbooks at Art of the Carolinas, I've been really trying to make a dedicated effort to sketching almost every day with at least one goal being to improve my painting. At some point I plan to take an actual class on drawing to make sure I'm doing the correct things, but for now, I'm certainly enjoying just trying the various media to do quick sketches, both from life and from my own imagination. I most often use pen markers with either fiber or brush tips and occasionally will sketch with watercolors or pencils. However, tonight I decided to give India ink a try, using watercolor washes along with it. I'm really enjoying this new medium and am excited to discover all the things I can do with it. :-)

I've also been working a lot with pen markers in my sketchbooks to try and teach myself to draw more quickly and hopefully with better looseness and free expression. The wider chisel-tipped and brush markers make it easier to cover larger sections of the page. But I try to use the smaller tipped markers as well, to make me think more about my mark-making and color choices. One thing I am definitely becoming quickly aware of is that I need to find some classes on color theory asap!

A New Day

Today dawned brightly sunny and crisp, setting the perfect mood for celebrating the one-year anniversary in our new home. Sitting in our living room, flooded with natural sunlight, while sipping my early morning coffee, I was inspired to finally christen the little Strathmore watercolor sketchbook I picked up at Art of the Carolinas using a mini portable watercolor pan paintset. I hope you enjoy this little landscape as much as I enjoyed painting it!

© 2013 Tammy Kaufman - A New Day - watercolors on paper 5.5" x 8.5"

Enjoying the Journey

Having been involved in competitive ventures of some sort for most of the past 20 to 30 or so years of my life, whether in horsemanship, bicycling, tennis or other sports, I had grown to believe that success was determined solely by how well I scored, as judged by other people or a timer or some other such external measure. Not being very athletic by nature, this generally did not end well for me, as I never measured up to the others in my field, and I've spent far too much of my life feeling "less than" or inadequate. Never would I have believed something as simple as picking up a brush, pencil or pastel stick and putting it to canvas or paper would have had such a profound impact on me and how I view my world and existence. Nor would I have ever considered that being an absolute unskilled beginner at something with no real aspirations toward ever trying to measure up to anyone else's idea of "success" would have given me so much joy within myself.

I've only been painting for about five months now, but through the world of art, I feel like my mind's-eyes are already opening, allowing me to truly see for what feels like the very first time, every time I paint. For once, I'm not concerned with whether I'm "good enough" or "successful enough", or what anyone else thinks I should be or do to be "enough". When I paint, I am myself and that is, simply put, enough for me, right here, right now and it feels like home. There's a special kind of magic I feel when painting my own personal visions, whether from my dreams, the beauty of Mother Nature all around me, or even the quirky personality and lively spark of a precocious dog.

My artistic clumsiness is rivaled only by my enthusiasm for painting, but surprisingly enough for someone who has spent decades trying unsuccessfully to "measure up", I find an incredible sense of childlike abandon when I paint, no matter how the results turn out. And I feel like I truly am standing on the shoulders of giants when painting the magically wondrous natural world as I see it. Reveling in the pure joy of my oblivious beginner naivete, unfettered by worries about whether I'm "doing it right" or not, one thing I am learning firsthand when I paint is that the journey really IS the destination.

© 2013 Tammy Kaufman - On the Shoulders of Giants - soft pastels on 1000 sandpaper 4.5" x 5.5"

In My Dreams

I often find inspiration to paint from the hidden sanctuaries visited in my dreams. It is intriguing to me that these frequently have water elements in them which I find very calming during my dreams, yet in reality I have somewhat of a fear of large bodies of water. Color is another prominent component of many of my dreams. Sometimes they are soft and muted.  In other dreams, colors are abundant and vivid, almost to the point of harshness. Sometimes I dream of calm and serene locations, and other times of chaotic and visually noisy areas. And then other times, the scenes contain both chaos and calm. One common thread I find with most of the places I see in my dreams, though, is a tendency toward symmetry - perhaps a nod to obsessive-compulsive tendencies? Whatever my dreams may - or may not - mean on a deeper level, it's still always a joy to try to capture those flights of imagination by painting them.

 

My Dog is Awesome

My dog is awesome. He's paws-down the absolute best, most encouraging cycling coach ever. When I go too slow up the hills, he gives me that "hurry UP" look and sticks his tongue out at me..

He's happy to play in the creek when I want to take a short break from climbing...

Fry truly IS my "Cycle Dog".

True Grit

I've been trying out some of the Uart sanded pastel papers I got at Art of the Carolinas, and have really been enjoying them. I've also happily found that blending stumps perform quite nicely to easily work the pastels into the sandpaper, as does just a simple foam brush, with the added bonus of sparing my fingertips from the grit. On a whim, I've additionally been trying the pastels on plain sandpaper, which works well in a very, very fine grit, although it is not quite as sturdy as the Uart. Regular sandpaper is probably not pH-neutral and acid-free like the Uart paper, either, but for the little thumbnails I've been creating, it's not that big a deal. And it's been a lot of fun experimenting with all varieties of surfaces.