Monday, August 29, 2011

Pastel Corn

Great timing for this challenge. Next week I'll be in Colorado at a pastel painting week in the mountains with my sister. I've been practicing all week since I haven't done anything with pastels in several years. Doing laundry the other day I noticed the pile of lovely colored 'Color Guard' sheets from previous washings. I had 4 of these lovely mahogany colored sheets. This a.m. I put one on my drawing board and proceeded to do a painting of a dried cornstalk simulating what they must look like now in dry Texas compared to our nice green ones here in Nebraska. Interesting surface to work on. I had a fairly nice drawing and then decided to attempt some quilting lines for more detail. MISTAKE! It shook loose much of the pastel muddying the appearance. So I took it back for more pastel. Of course, I couldn't get the original look. But here is the finished piece and I learned a lot about surfaces with this little piece. Thanks for a wonderful, timely challenge!

11 comments:

Unknown said...

Jan,

I really like the effect of the surface texture created by the 'Color Guard' sheet. It seems to give your piece a translucent feel. The chalkiness of the pastels along with the colors you used evoke the dryness of the stalks. I think this fits well into the challenge.

Louise

Susan Ward said...

Very nice. Great texture and color! I have never tried working with dryer sheets - very intresting.

Art by Rhoda Forbes said...

Jan, this is really nice, lot's of light shining on it. What if you sprayed it with a fixative before adding the stitching lines? This whole color scheme gives a real feeling of Autumn to me.

Jan said...

Spraying fixative on a pastels can also muddy them & since this was done on a surface not best for pastels I worry about doing more. I might try it & then maybe do another piece.

Cynthia Ann Morgan said...

Hi Jan, what a cool piece...love the light and shade effects, the soft coloring and the tactile look of it. Great job! Have fun at your Art week
Cynthia

Cherie in Del Mar said...

This is so beautiful Jan! What a marvelous use for my growing collection of color sheets
I will be interested to hear the results of the fixative on the pastels. Hope it works!
Cherie

Marilyn Wall said...

Interesting piece. I save my color guard sheets for a friend I may have to start using them myself. I have a piece I used pastels on about ten years ago and they are still bright. I did see tell-tell signs of color on my hands when I quilted.
This piece fills the challenge well.

fastfriday said...

The perfect texture for this piece! I can almost smell the corn stalks. I really love this piece

Pat Havey

Linda Mac said...

I too love the texture of this piece. This is a good reminder for me to use up my store of color sheets.

Betty Donahue said...

This is great. It proves the Bob Ross theory that there are no mistakes, just happy accidents.
Betty

fastfriday said...

Jan, what a wonderful piece! I guess I should buy some color guard sheets and give them a try. The texture on this piece is great. Well done.

Susan Armstrong