Another view from my studio window

Watercolor

I've not painted for some time, but finally did this 18x24 watercolor taken from a newspaper photo.  The picture showed two hikers climbing along the edge of a precipitous rocky incline covered with exposed tree roots.  I exaggerated the roots and minimized the hikers almost to the point of abstraction.  I'm very pleased with this.

Pyrography

I've been experimenting with woodburning for awhile and feel I am really getting the hang of it now.  These are the latest two .  I don't know how well respected pyrography is in the art world, but I guess I really don't care.

Pastel Rejuvenated

I painted this scene as a watercolor many years ago and it was kind of a dud.  I kept it anyway, most likely thinking I would use the other side of the paper.  Yesterday I saw it crumpled in a corner and decided to put pastel on it.  Of course the whole thing is different, but who is to know?  The house was torn down, as well as the dead trees.  I was free to invent the landscape...I did what I do best with pastel....fields and rocks.  I also cut the thing down to about a third its size.  Originally I was so impressed by the size of the dead trees that they took up more than half the painting.  This time composition overwhelmed that desire.  I like the resulting work.

Pyrography

Talking with my old friend Elizabeth inspired me to use wildlife as subject matter.  Since paper is hard to come by I decided to return to my pyrography.  After exploring the medium on the internet, I felt inspired to really work hard to improve my work.  I am very happy with these two.  I have learned that the quality of the wood makes a very big difference and plan to buy some birch plywood from the art supply catalog.  I'm not sure how this medium is thought of in the art world, but certainly that makes little difference to me.  Since I like to draw, this is a good medium for me.  There are many examples of beautiful work on the computer.

Version 2

I couldn't stop working on the pastel, and now I'm happy with it.  I tlooks like Michelle.

Pastel

I got out my pastels this morning.......I had the urge to draw.  This is a portrait of my cousin, Michelle (with her violin in case you can't tell what that is).  I think it is a fine portrait of someone, perhaps a combination of Michelle and me.  We do have half our genes in common.  I must have unknowingly seen those St. Germain genes elbowing out the Nosco genes.  I'll try again with paint.  It is much more forgiving and I can work until it's right.