Trip to Monterey or Not?

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22"x17" Pastel on Tinted 80lb Paper

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This was my Final Project and my Final Pastel Painting. 

The smiley model of this painting is an adorable boy from Africa who was adopted by  one great San Francisco family. His nature is just like a Sunshine. In fact, if to translate his name to English it would read something like that. The family is getting this portrait as a gift from the Artist.

I've used several techniques when working on this art piece. For the face, I put layer after layer with smudging technique, yet the eyes I've drawn with the point of a pastel stick in the sharp crisp strokes. For the fuzzy fleece jacket I placed my pastel stick horizontally on the paper and moved different directions to allow the texture of the paper to shine through. When I took the original picture it was not that colorful at all. The background was a concrete pavement with a few pigeons on a back. I decided to combine two in one. I got one of the photo references that I had from my trip to Monterey and made the little boy "travel" to that beautiful place. 

And now when my semester is over, I need to get inspired to paint as bring as pastels with my lovely watercolors. The "models" didn't wait too long. The day started bright; and my fresh-picked garden roses posed for me if they were asking to paint them in the future:

Lemons And A Playground

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Painting in pastels is not easy for the watercolor artist like me. The dry medium tries to jump off the paper; and God forbid you sneeze or say "Ahhh".. forget about the last layer you worked on so hard ;)..

These two artworks are painted (yes, yes, they say PAINT) in pastels. And as much as I love watercolor, I have to admit I liked the outcome of these two (really want to say DRAWINGS).

I was really nervous about lemon skin though. In watercolor I would just dab the brush slightly with complimenting color and take out some dots with a dump pointy brush. Here, I had to make lots of pastel dots. It sounded as I am knocking the door (if somebody watches The Big Bang Theory.. it was like thousands of Sheldons .. never mind :0)...and the bad part: the dots did not want to stay! Thank God for a good advise from the teacher to fix the layers; otherwise, I could never make this post happen. 

Tomorrow I will place my last pastel that I've painted this semester in class. It is truly The Final.

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16"x22" pastel paintings with Rembrandt pastel on tinted 80lb Pastel Paper

Never Late To Practice

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If somebody told me twenty years ago that when I turn 40+ I will paint balls and cylinders again, oy, I'd laugh very hard. Yet here I am, taking a drawing class for my degree. And the best part that I enjoy it. When teacher said we'll do simple still lives, one per 3 hour class, I couldn't believe its possible. My academic experience from Russian art schools told me it is impossible as we mostly painted in pencil (graphite) with very fine applications. Here we were supposed to use charcoal, sanquine, and white crayons on a tinted  and very fine paper. These materials helped to speed up the process. It was not too easy to block out of watercolor-mind and use dry techniques. But it was fun.

I thought I will share some of non-watercolor art that I've done in the class this semester while I am working on one pretty urgent commission painting (not yet to be disclosed).

And by the end of the week you can see my masterpiece with pastels. Gosh! I have not used pastels literally 20+ years! You will be the judge :0)

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Each Drawing is on 18"x24", Tinted 80lb Pastel Paper with charcoal, sanquine, and white crayons. 

Free e-Book

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I am so happy to admit that my blog is taking a new turn. 

With its almost 150 posts that reflect not only my art but deliver deep thoughts from my heart; it received more than 800 warm encouraging comments. Meantime, I was wondering: how in return I can be grateful to my followers and subscribers. And last week it just hit me: is so easy to be generous! I created a special art book that contains more than 80 paintings from a few recent years. 

I thought it will be a great thing to offer the following: 

Each person who signs up to have updates from my blog by e-mail will receive a free art-e-book from me.

Have a splendid day!

Irina

What Color is The Tango?

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…or Flamenco?

These few paintings are the part of my new Dancing Collection (in Abstract– Décor - Collage gallery). It started when I asked myself a question: what color are the dances such Tango, or Flamenco, or classical ballet? And this question led to an idea to create a several series of paintings:

·        Dancing Fire (part of it you see now)

·        Dancing Water (coming in the near future)

·        Dancing Wind (need to work on color palette first)

I think that certain dances definitely apply to the descriptions above as well as certain colors.

For instance, Tango and Flamenco are just begging for Scarlet Red, Electric Yellow, and Burned Siena.

One of the legends about the origins of Tango is that it came from Buenos Aires, Argentina; which at the end of the 19^th century had quite a diverse place. A good mix of immigrants from Italy, Spain, Britain, Poland, Russia, Germany and other European countries brought their touch to the creation of this pulsating dance. Between 1910 – 1913, Tango was introduced to Paris and later spread across the Atlantic quickly becoming an international phenomena.

On another hand, Flamenco dance is pure Spanish and has a long history going back to 1700s. One legend states that it was named after a gracious bird flamingo. As that bird Flamenco resembles a beautiful dance of exotic creature. Different legend claims that Flamenco is the traditional dance of Spanish Gypsies (flamencos) from Andalusia. 

Both Tango and Flamenco are hot and vibrant, just like their Fire colors. There is no doubt that a spicy flickering fire is involved in their music and provocative moves.

This is my color tribute to dance and music.

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6”x4” Winsor & Newton Watercolors on 140 Cold Pressed Paper