I started out with an attempt at doing a realistic succulent in gouache. It just wasn’t there. Then my pastels class came between it and me. And this ode to Audrey (from “Little Shop of Horrors” fame) moved into a sort of abstraction of its own. Normally my gouache tends to be done with thick paint and a stiff brush; here, softer paint and a softer brush. Quite a different experience and one I will need to revisit.
Yesterday I started an 8 week course in pastels. Already I am in love with the medium! Add to this, the teacher is a real teacher – she is a professional who teaches full time in an elementary classroom. She is organized, states what she expects, interacts, demonstrates, and all the things that are so important in learning something new. Some teachers just say “have at it” and you stumble along, not knowing what you are doing. Yes, experience is a good teacher, but explanations and clarity really help one understand what is going on. I am looking forward to more classes!
Here is a picture from the Malibu Creek State Park near where I live. We all had a copy of a photograph to use, and then she explained the Rule of Thirds, the Golden Mean, and explained how she changed the composition of the photo to meet the needs of the Rule of Thirds. Value studies, too, were done before even picking up a color.
We used Nupastels, made by Prismacolor. Inexpensive but very nice. I have some Rembrandt soft pastels that I will use later on, or in conjunction with the ones we have in the classroom. As I love colors and drawing, this is a perfect combination of “things” – and these pictures are not “drawings” but “paintings” in the lexicon of the teacher. I never considered a pastel a painting.
I have not been this excited about a class in a very, very long time.
Ceanothus is also known as California Lilac. it is a shrub with glossy green leaves (as you can see in the photo!). It comes in other colors, too, but the blue is the original color. To me, it is always the sign that spring is on the way – and today I found it, along with a lot of other plants in bloom. I was as busy as a bee!
I used my Nikon V3 and 70-300mm lens, which, with a 2.8 crop factor, makes the 300mm closer to 810mm. It allows for great shots and I totally forget, until I use it, what a wonderful system it is.
This morning the sky is mottled with clouds and the light is soft. Bright red flowers seem even brighter than ever.
I keep meaning to find out the name of these – never seem to find their label in the garden. Time to set about on a hunt, like I do annually for the daffodils and narcissus.
This is a panorama shot with a very narrow DOF. The focal point could have been better, but it is the row of daffs in front of the trees. The third clump in the very front from the left is best in focus, but I probably could have focused on the blooms in the second clump. Oh well.
I probably took 60 or so images here, and got a really well-covered area. The point is to see the different layers of in and out of focus areas. The foreground is sort of in focus, then the daffodils, and then moving back, the trees become increasingly more blurred. Sometimes doing these big panoramas can produce exciting pictures – other times, rather meh to downright worthless. If you enlarge the picture, you will be able to see the levels of focus more clearly.
The beauty of digital! So much can be thrown away, so much can be play, so much can be a learning experience that is cheap – film does not make this an economic adventure at all.
Ink, Yarn & Beer 