Daffy

 Oil pastels

and

gansai tambi watercolours

I like them both.  

more oil pastels and the betrayal of the metric system

 Some more oil pastel practice.  

It's the metric system that did it.  I ordered a few hundred 10x10 pieces of paper thinking that an american website would sell in inches.  Only to find out that it was cm.  

But good practice.  Although I think the match box would look better if it didn't have such wonky sides.  

There's something fun about playing with such bright colours.

Caution!

 This little chicken turned out way brighter than I expected.  It's painted in Beam Watercolours and it shows the big problem I have with those paints - they are so vibrant!  

I need to spend some time with these paints and get the hang of how to tone them down.  

pentel oil pastels - no

 I decided to try some different oil pastel brands because - cheaper.

I hate them.  Pentel oil pastels stink like used motor oil and so many crumbs.  Just this much and I'm so unhappy I got these.  They are very firm and seem more like crayons than pastels.  Perhaps I got a bad batch?  

saffron

 I don't know if these ones make saffron or not.

But they make an okay painting (gansai tambi watercolours).

The story: the local library was giving away free pencils so I took two (ghasp!) and felt guilty (rightly so) so I painted them a picture to say thank you. 

It was some time ago and they kept the picture up on display for nearly a year.  I felt kind of bad I can't draw better and was glad when they finally took it down.  

willow time

 some gansai tambi watercolour willows for fun.

Mostly, I wanted to see if I could paint glass.

But also, maybe it would be good way to keep track of some of the things on the farm.  

spring flowers

 starting to get the hang of oil pastels

It's a tricky medium and even more so because it never dries all the way.  I think that will become frustrating eventually.  

our first flower of the year

snowdrop and oil pastels

these guys are tricky because they keep changing shape every 2 seconds.  I don't know why. 

 

new limited palette

 

Playing with a new limited palette.  I love mixing charts and it seems very good at painting a chicken.

White

Hansa yellow

Caput Mortuum 

Indigo

a green I can't remember

Mars Black

How about oil pastels?

 Found some affordable oil pastels.

It's hard as the Haiya set varies dramatically in price depending on where we shop and when.  The sad thing is the manufacture is probably getting exactly the same amount if we pay $20 or $120. There are a lot of middlemen in the way.  

This is harder than it looks.

Raven goes to class

 I took a class at the local arts center on mixed media and watercolours.  I focused on ink and paint.

I really like how this turned out.  Not the normal realistic style that I generally paint.  But not quite where I'm trying to get to either. 

How about a hobbit house, but it's a farm

 One of those old style farms where the house is one 'wing' and the barn is the other.  

Again, pained with Beam watercolours in the limited palette

Although I can't really tell if that's a dog or a small sheep going in the house side with him.  

I think I'm here

The problem with time away is I forgot where I was.  I think we haven't seen this monstrosity yet.   

The idea is that maybe if I start with pretty colours then paint the dull ones over top... no.  that didn't work.  But the idea is worth exploring again.

New year, art, stuff

One of my goals this year is to catch this blog up so it can be a backup of what I've been doing lately.  Learning art.  Thus the frequent posting these last few months of 2024

I'm about a year behind still.  

I can write a bunch of posts all at once, then schedule them to go out every other day.  This seems to be working... except... when I forgot to add more.  

Here's a sneak preview of where I'm at art-wise as of Jan 2025.