Ingredients

• potatoes
• white sugar ,just a pinch
• seasoning salt
• Worcestershire sauce no more than 5 drops or so
• mustard
• black pepper
• mayonnaise
• chopped green onions (preferably scallions)
• chopped celery
• chopped fresh parsley
• a couple shakes of basil
• one tin black olives (optional)
• one tin of peas & carrots mixed <——THE BEST PART!

Directions

1. Peel (optional) and dice potatoes
2. Place in a pot of cold water and bring to a boil.
3. Once potatoes have cooked and cooled place them in a LARGE bowl, add the ingredients above to your liking and enjoy.
4. You can also added fresh green beans (cooked to a crisp) and crsip bacon.
5. Salad can be served as is or over romaine lettuce.

My latest piece: captured in an array of warm siennas and purples, a baby dreams of life’s discoveries and adventures.

This is one off my latest, completed in yellow ochres and with purple hues overlaid.

Here is one of my latest impressionistic still life pieces. A simple piece depicting two pears. This piece was completed by applying soft pastel over modelling paste.

This is my very first piece completed with modelling paste. It’s hard to see the textures through a photography but the modelling paste provides some wonderful ridges. It does however take some getting use to as it doesn’t allow for super fine detail. I’m still experimenting with it to determine exactly how/when I’ll use it throughout my works.

Here is my latest still life, a bowl of soft fuzzy peaches. This is the second time I have revisited this reference material. I did it earlier in the year with ochre tones, remember this post.

I have applied a blue under painting to the charcoal but am not sure if I will leave this as the finished product or go on to add further colours. What do you think?

Here is one of my latest pieces, two apples upon a counter top. I decided to do a green underpainting with a few red over tones. It’s amazing how so few colours can give you a wide range of colours once you start mixing them on the paper. The finished product isn’t far off from the actual colours and values. I’m definitely happy with this one. I’m becoming more comfortable with colour mixing.

Charcoal Layer

Green Underpainting

 Red Overtones

Here is one of my latest pieces, a little baby sucking on her hands. Below is the first charcoal layer. At first I was not sure what colour to do the under painting and then began leaning towards something neutral like ochre, similar to the apples I did previously.

I decided on a coral ochre under painting to the charcoal for a soft finish.

And here is the finished piece below. The pink ochre gives the piece a warm and soft feeling, And it’s amazing how the combo of pink and brown pastels only produces this effect. It looks as though I have used some greens and oranges.. I’m guessing that had I wanted to take this piece to “full colour” there wouldn’t be too much work left from this point in. I still have so much to learn regarding pastel layering, but the fun is in the journey right! for this piece specifically I don’t wish to add any more colour ranges to it. I’ll keep it simple…

It’s been a productive week as you can see. here is my second charcoal drawing for the week, a bowl of pears.

I thought about moving this piece forward and adding some colour layers, however for now it shall remain a charcoal piece. I know learning the art of colour mixing is a necessity but I always feel like I will destroy the picture because I’m not clear on what I’m doing. But I’m trying to get over that so I can grow further and become more comfortable with pastels.

Here is another charcoal picture, a small group of peaches. I have done two of these…I’m hoping to apply two different ochre under-paintings to each one and then have the two finished pieces function as dual/a pair of paintings. I also figured that this was a simple way for me to see the different effects you can get with various under-paintings and compare it to the same subject having the same tones etc. I will post an update on this one as well once I have done some more work on it.

My source material for this one wasn’t too great as I lost some of the gradually greys, you can see that my peaches don’t quite turn in space nor do they look really fuzzy. Anyhow, I need to learn what makes for a great reference shot… due time.

This is the start of my latest piece, "Find A Way"… I have just finished the charcoal base of the woman. I’ll more than likely apply an ochre base to it and at some point before that I need to figure out what the background is doing or will be… at some point.

I’m definitely feeling this piece, this one is personal, a definite must for what I want to say right now and where I’ll be going… sometimes it gets deep, you know how it is…

My latest, pastel piece, a plate of fruit… completed first in charcoal

Next, I added a bit of purple to the yellow ochre to form the underpainting. I like the soft feel of this piece and how the complementary colours work together. Who would have ever thought yellow and purple could do this.

I think I have reached a point where I know understand (to a sufficient degree) how to read the values in a photo/source material so that I can replicate it, in my style, using charcoal. The concept of reading values (lights, darks and their intensities) has been quite a learning experience. To a degree it’s not something I paid attention to much before because I tended to make up that part… and making it up seldom has the same effect as knowing how to replicate the real thing…

With that said, I have finally moved onto what I refer to as the “base painting”, the fist layer of pastel. In class I’ve been learning  to apply this first base in “ochre” colors and the results have been gorgeous. My first ochre pastel is shown in the previous post. I’ll post my latest piece soon to show you the growth over the last 2 weeks.

Here’s a little background on exactly what ochre is:

Ochre or Ocher is a term for both a golden -yellow or light yellow brown color and for a form of earth pigment which produces the color. The pigment can also be used to create a reddish tint known as Red ochre. The more rarely used terms Purple ochre and Brown ochre also exist for variant hues. Because of these other hues, the color Ochre is sometimes referred to as Yellow ochre.

Ochres are among the earliest pigments used by mankind, derived from naturally tinted clay containing mineral oxides. Chemically, it is hydrated iron (III) oxide. Modern artists’ pigments continue to use the terms Yellow ochre and Red ochre for specific hues.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ochre

It has been so long since I’ve posted but for good reason! I’m busy creating new pieces and it feels good! Here is my latest charcoal and pastel piece, a simple bowl of peaches and apples done in ochre.

This is my favourite piece to date! This one is also done in charcoal.

I started a charcoal picture of a two garlic bulbs. In this first picture I’ve just completed the first bulb. I’ll post the finished piece by end of week.

And here is the finished piece a week later. I’m pretty happy with this one. I think I’d definitely like to revisit Garlic again, and maybe do a mini series with 3-4 pieces.