OK, OK Already!

Sunrise on St. Mary's - 24 x 18" pastel on paper

I can tell everyone is getting antsy for a new painting. I've lost subscribers to my blog, and no one is emailing me anymore.

Well, here y'go. After a rather length vacation (yes, the project is finished - thank goodness!), I'm back at my easel.

The photo for this picture came from a fellow Etsy artist's blog. This picture presented some challenges. The biggest hurdle was keeping the waterfall and the surrounding rocks in a dark enough value range that the sunshine would be dominant. The original photo only had a hint of sun at the very top (and hardly any of the trees), so I had to make up the rest.

This painting is a good example of how a color can look differently depending on what it's background is. The sun highlights on the rocks to the right are actually a light orange color, but on the purple, they, too, take on a purple color - weird, huh?

I'm going to let it sit on my mantelpiece downstairs for a few days until I sign it. If you see anything that needs adjusting, let me know!

Thanks,

Pastel Guy

www.matthewweld.com - pastel paintings

www.studio206.etsy.com - handmade jewelry for sale

In Summary...

As the month draws to a close, there are several items on my mind:

1. NaBloPoMo - I'm not sure whether it's the curse of the devil, or heaven sent. I've enjoyed blogging, and having to do it every day for thirty days has definitely worked toward making it a habit. However, it has taken a toll with my wife, who complains of the amount of time spent on the computer...

2. Pastels - My creative juices are beginning to flow, and soon you will see new products. I joined WetCanvas! yesterday (a place for artists to congregate on the Net), and I think it will be a great learning/sharing/teaching opportunity.

3. Jewelry - Yesterday, we went to a local Craft Fair to shop around. I had done that show in the past, but it's three days over a holiday weekend, and I just don't want to give up the family time anymore. I suppose if it were my sole income, I'd be there schlepping jewelry like a madman.

4. Etsy - Well, I've had an Etsy store for about 2.5 months now, and have sold three items. I realize that it's a great place for indie artists to showcase their work, but when the jewelry category is the largest, it's just REALLY hard to compete. I think I need to sell something more original in there. Perhaps notecards of my pastel paintings. I don't want to do prints of my works, but notecards would be OK, I think.

5. Christmas - Bring it on! I don't have anything on my list this year, except for a new website and a Blackberry Storm (as discussed here). I think the website is do-able, but the Storm's monthly access fee is completely out of my price range.

6. My Family - Still the best thing since sliced bread, and what I'm most thankful for this year.

7. Yahoo! Groups - Yep. I joined 2 of them this month. One with people from Montana who have stores on Etsy And the second is for pastel painters. I have corresponded with some wonderful people in both groups, and secondarily, have also put my name out there into the art world just a little tiny bit.

Thanks for reading and commenting!
Pastel Guy
www.matthewweld.com - pastel paintings
www.studio206.etsy.com - handmade jewelry for sale

Pastel Musings

Summer Ripples (16 x 20 pastel on panel)

I thought I'd dig into my archives for today's post. In looking back through my postings, it's been awhile since I've posted a pastel.

The board for this painting was green.

And I mean a warm green similar to the middle value of the trees on the right. That made the sky pretty difficult, since I didn't want any of the color showing through. I might as well have started with white. I had to work with the panel flat, so that when I colored in the sky, all the extra dust stayed on the surface. I could then take an old paintbrush and gently work it into the crevasses. After that, I used my finger to build up the pigment so that the green was completely hidden.

Next came the golden hill and the faraway trees, which I wanted to keep especially cool. The color of the foliage in this picture is different from the forests around the Midwest in that the overall color temperature is cooler. I had to keep that in the forefront of my mind since my tendency is to use the warm greens that are found in Illinois.

For the beach, I found out just how many uses Great American's Violet Grey has. It's great for sky as well as rocks.

The grasses along the side went in easily. I was please that I chose a warmer color for the tassels. Then the reflections went in, and finally the moving water with the reflected sky.

The water was the part I was the most nervous about. I had just finished Summer Idyll and Chinook, where the water worked out great. But those were still waters, and the little ripples in this one made me unsure. But I looked at them as colors and shapes and recreated them rather than trying to represent ripples. It was really quite easy. After laying down the darker Neptune and Bismark (and maybe some Navy), I was able to scumble Denim over the surface, and viola! ripples.

But I've decided that I love painting water. There are so many variables - the lighting, the distance of the reflected items from the edge of the water, the cloud cover, the wind, etc. It's a great challenge. I think that growing up on lakefront property helps a lot, too. I have a firm memory base of what water looks like in various states, and I believe this basic understanding helps a lot in my landscape painting.

Keep noticing the details!

Pastel Guy

www.matthewweld.com - landscapes in pastel

www.studio206.etsy.com - handmade jewelry for sale

Ugh!

Winter is certainly on its way. Rain, wind, more rain, clouds, and, oh! Did I mention rain?

I decided to dig out this painting as an illustration of how it is around here. Well, minus the snow.

This pastel, Chinook on the Haute Bois (pastel on panel, 18 x 24), was done last winter here in my studio. I found the picture online by a guy who photographs all the rivers he visits to fish. There are some amazing pictures there, and he was nice enough to give me permission to paint a couple of them.

This particular painting received the most comments at the art show in September. The mirror-like quality of the water does make it look realistic enough to want to stare at it for awhile. This was one of those instances where it all worked from the beginning, and I didn't have to fuss with anything. I used just three colors in the water, and blended them carefully with my finger.

If I remember correctly, I used the Great American colors Bismark with two values of Denim. I wish I had taken a picture of this painting as it was completed, because I did the sky first (as always), followed by the stream. I remember thinking how odd it looked to have this perfectly reflective stream surrounded by blank board.

This is one of those paintings where I elected to not have any of the board show through, so I had to be very careful to cover all areas - to make sure the pastel made it into all the crevices of the pumiced board.

To me, this painting reflects what I love so much about nature - its tranquility. One of the best comments I have received about my work as a whole was during my summer show. It had been open for about an hour when a woman came through and said, "Your work is so peaceful!" With the stress of putting a show together, I hadn't realized it, but yes, that's exactly what my art does for me. It provides tranquility in an otherwise very busy life.

This painting is currently on display, and available for sale, through Gallerie M in St. Louis.

Until tomorrow,
Pastel Guy
www.matthewweld.com - pastel paintings
www.studio206.etsy.com - jewelry store

Inorganic v. Organic

Every once in a while in painting, you stumble across a roadblock - OK, so it happens a lot. But solving these issues is what make your paintings stronger, and you as an artist more successful. If you can work out your own issues and then internalize them, you will find that the next time a similar issue comes up, you will be prepared.

In this painting of a flowerbox on a houseboat in Seattle, I found that I really wanted to emphasize the difference between the manmade house and the organic flowers. I thought that the best way to do this would be to make the window, the siding, and the flowerbox all have very distinct lines and edges (more on that later!), and keep the lobelia, lavender, and geraniums very impressionistic. Since most of my landscape painting is very loose (see www.matthewweld.com for more of my work), I had to figure out how to make a hard, straight edge for the manmade elements.

In the end, I used a ruler, broke my pastels into pieces with sharp corners, and ran the pastel along the ruler. Without moving the ruler, I then used a finger to rub the pastel into the pumice (I use Gator Foam with pumice powder gesso) to create the hard edge. Repeat on the other side of the shape if necessary, and then fill in the middle as needed. The trick was figuring out the order in which to do the shapes, considering that while pastels are basically opaque, you can still see the undercolors through the more recent layers. Also, I have both very light and very dark values in the window. In the end, I think it worked. I especially like the little details in the window woodwork that can only be enjoyed when looking closely - a sort of reward for taking a second, closer look.

Window Garden 16 x 12 pastel on panel (2008)

Keep Painting!

Pastel Guy www.matthewweld.com

Goals for an Art Blog

Welcome to my blog! As a newbie blogger, I have several reasons for starting a blog:

1. To increase awareness of my art.
2. To allow people (artists, collectors, anyone) to learn more about me and therefore about my art.
3. To provide a place for me to journal. More on this below.

In the interest of actually making a profit at art, I have heard/read that creating a blog is an excellent way to connect with people, not only potential collectors, but also fellow artists that may be able to provide constructive criticism to my work and to my writing and ideas.

I originally hail from Montana. College years were spent at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa securing a BA in Biology, and finding the love of my life (I've now been with her longer than I was without her!). For a career, I've pursued interior design (glorified furniture sales person!), nursery worker, graduate student, dental technician, and currently, 7th grade science and language arts teacher.

Art started in high school with watercolors, with which I obtained some college scholarships (didn't use them, however). Oil painting courses, a one-man show, and my first art award happened in college. Then, about twelve years later, I took a class in stained glass. That led to the craft fair circuit, which I found rewarding for a few years. However, when people tried and barter down an original picture frame priced at $35 that took hours to make because they could go to a box store and buy equivalents for less, I knew that stained glass was not going to be very lucrative.

What I discovered was that the jewelry I made during the stained glass phase was extremely popular, could be massed produced, and sold at a good profit. However, I needed to be able to broaden my offerings, so that led to the new tangent of beaded jewelry, under the company name of Studio 206. This venture was much more lucrative (still is!), and I have slowly moved into the realm of silversmithed and custom jewelry.

On track to define a couple lines that could be mass marketed online, I opted to take a course in pastel paintings at Arrowmont in Gatlinburg, TN from noted pastelist Susan Ogilvie. That brought the jewelry thing to a screeching halt as I realized that I really loved working in two dimensions, and the challenges that it brought. Pastels especially provide a more sensory experience in the art; you actually can rub your fingers raw blending colors. They seem so under admired in the art world, yet they seem like the pure essence of 2D work with their pure pigmented colors and techniques that draw heavily from drawing (no pun intended!). More on this in a future blog!

As a result of the workshop, my New Year's Resolutions shifted to include submission of my work to two venues: a juried art show, and a juried art exhibition. I juried my work to two of each, and was accepted to one of each. The gallery presentation is in Tacoma Washington at the American Art Company, hosted by the Northwest Pastel Society. It runs through August 16th, 2008. The art show is here in southern Illinois August 22 - 24th, called The Midwest Salute to the Arts.

My family and I were actually able to see my painting in situ at the Tacoma Gallery, and were pleased to walk in and find that my painting had won an award! Another first, and definitely a proud moment in my life.

Next weekend is the big show here in Fairview, and I think I'm about ready. I have 19 paintings framed and ready to go, not counting the two that are required for the donation to the children's art section. I have set my new display system up in my garage, so that I can fuss with the placement of the pictures and with the lighting. I have also obtained a machine to start taking credit cards - until now, I have only accepted checks and cash. It's all quite overwhelming - fortunately, I have started displays from scratch for my jewelry and for my stained glass, so I'm not a total novice!

The third reason I started this blog was to give myself a place to journal. In my language arts classes, I keep nagging the kids to keep a journal, because it's a great way to put down your feelings, and in so doing, really exploring those feelings and ideas. This summer, all four of us in my family kept a journal of our vacations. I really enjoyed it, actually, and need to find the time to sit down and put the finishing touches on it. Natually, mine had sketches in it, as well as little momentos that I collected along the way. My wife's (she the type A organizational guru) journal was a list of places we went and the money we spent. She calculated gas mileage while I analyzed the colors and shadows of a thunderstorm.

There's a little about my and my motivations for blogging. I hope to philosophize more on art, pastels, pastel techniques, etc. in later blogs. For now, peace, and enjoy the last half of August!