Using bald colors

Who ever said that desert can't have bright colors? Here is my latest interpretation of a desert landscape in the spring.

4x6" Pastel on Colorfix paper

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landscape pastels

Daily painting

Have you ever tried challenges? Some sites such as Paintingsilove.com allow their users to create challenges. It's a wonderful way to stay out of a creative rut.

 4x6 Pastel 

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Finding time to paint often.

Working full time while going to school and having an 18 month old all at the same time definitely leaves very little time to hobbies. Painting daily is important in order to improve or at least keep your existing skills so doing small daily paintings may be the best thing to do. Pastel works wonderful for such a purpose as it requires no preparation and can be left unfinished until the next time. :)

4x6 Pastel over watercolor. For more info visit facebook.com/kruglovfinearts

Using Acrylics on watercolor paper

It is possible to use acrylic paint to paint on watercolor paper. Most of the time artists dilute acrylics with water and literally use them as watercolors. However it is possible to use them like oils straight out of the tube. Why? Well, watercolor paper offers a very archivable yet cheap support. A 9X12 page of Arches paper is about a $1. A decent quality canvas of that size is anywhere from $8-$40 and that's not even top quality. That is an increase in cost for both artists and their fans.

I did some experimenting at first and found that applying acrylics out of the tube directly to the paper dries the paint very fast and often doesn't leave you any time to spread the paint around. When I painted this painting of the sunset woods, I used acrylic gesso to cover the paper and let it dry. I still suggest stretching the paper to prevent buckling or using a block. One coat of gesso seems to be enough o seal the paper in order to create a very pleasant rough surface.

"Winter sunset"

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Playing with Acrylics

So I decided to chat on pastels for a change and got a set of Liquitex Acrylic paints. I have used oils before and always wanted to give acrylics a try so I went out and got them. I am surprised how quickly they dry, its almost like using watercolors :) The heavy buttery consistency of Liquitex was nice however with both brushes and knives. Here is my first acrylic landscape.

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Echinacea

Today I decided to take a little break from homework and paint something simple. Except it turned into something much more detailed than I anticipated :)
This painting is a Pastel measuring 12X9" on Colorfix Brown pastel paper. I didnt use any underpainting on this one and just used the tone of the paper to set my darks. When using a darker tone paper its almost like its doing part of the work for you, all you have to do is respond to it with the appropriate values and it fills in the blanks :)

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Enjoy!

Painting Daily

As much as I browse the internet and check out other artist's blogs, they all seem to find time to paint something daily. I will have to admit, however, that I am not able to keep to that routine. I usually end up painting once or twice a week more or less, but just as any artist I would like to gain experience and the only way to do so is to paint often.

I think I know what my problem is... instead of painting something manageable in short period of time, like 30 minutes, I always start something grand, large, complicated... Simply put, if I know that I cant finish something i want to paint in time I have available I simply don't start it.

So here is my resolution: I am going to paint every day starting tomorrow and do it for consecutive 7 days. Any subject, any media the only limit is 30 minutes! We will see what come out of this :)

Pastel on Colourfix (brown) 8X10