There’s some debate in the pastel world as to whether pastels should be blended, left unblended or be some combination of both. Renowned pastelist William Schneider has found using a combination of unblending and blending pastels gives his work greater variety, softer edges and more unified areas of light and shadow.
New Utrecht Avenue2008, watercolor, 25 x 35. Private collection.I need personal time in the studio to reflect, journal, and work. Something I can look forward to and walk away from believing the growth has taken seed.Besides practice, for many of us, reading books and articles, watching videos, attending workshops, or even enrolling in long-term schooling makes a big difference in our development.
With watercolor batik, wax is used as a resist—and if you’ve ever used masking fluid on watercolor paper, you understand how a resist works. The wax blocks the areas that aren’t intended to receive paint. The materials I use in my batik process are very simple: rice paper, watercolor and melted paraffin wax.
Have you ever jerry-rigged something because you didn’t have what you really needed to get the job done? Boy, I have. The instance that has gotten the most laughter from my friends is from a time before I finally learned how to sew. I had a Halloween costume that needed some alterations just before I left the house to go to a party.
Sunset over the Catskills by James Gurney, oil painting.If I want to excel in my craft and become any kind of decent realist painter, the two aspects of oil painting that I need to focus on are color and light. Perfecting the two, together, will allow me to paint anything I want.James Gurney is a plein air painter and the fantasy art author and illustrator of the book series, Dinotopia.
As little babes, we pick up our first crayons and pencils around the same time that our parents began teaching us how to use a spoon or soft-tipped fork with which to eat. It becomes second nature. So it seems only natural that learning how to draw with colored pencils is a wonderful way for beginning artists to dip their toes into creating art.
