New Home, New Studio, New Painting

Late Afternoon on the Sound

12 x 9 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

It has been a while, but I am finally set up in my new home and new studio. We moved from Hawaii to the Pacific Northwest. Hawaii is beautiful, but this place is quite wonderful. The mountains, tall evergreens, Puget Sound, and my incredibly beautiful back yard all call to me. My studio is great with fantastic natural light, even on these gloomy days of June.

My first painting in my new studio is from a reference photo my husband took of a small ferry coming into port on Whidbey Island. I loved the way the cloud colors reflect on the water. I am adding this to my cloud series even though the sky is not the focal area.

Homemade pastels

Sunset

9 x 9 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

I think I am finally back on a regular schedule for a while. We have been moving out of our house in preparation for our return to the Mainland. Tom leaves tomorrow, but I have to stay to finish out my school contract year. In the meantime, I am living in a small studio apartment in the convent across the street from my school. So far, it is all good.

Part of the moving process involved cleaning out our studios at home. Tom has been saving pastel dust for quite a long time. He had several containers, sorted by hue. He finally decided to make them into new pastel sticks before we moved. We looked all over for distilled water, but couldn't find it. I remember growing up and always having distilled water in the house because the steam iron required it. How things have changed. Finally, he decided to use tap water. The colors are all unusual, but quite wonderful. I especially like the reddish/pink. I used that in the sky and highlights in the water. The other colors are two values of greyed purple, two greens, and the reddish/pink. The best part is that they are all a little streaky, which adds an interesting dimension to the painting. Unfortunately, I don't think the photo I took shows the colors well. I did add two blues, two yellows, and an orange from my regular palette. I like the homemades so well, I am going to be more conscientious about saving my dust in the future.

End of the Day

9 x 12 soft pastels on Canson Mi Teintes pink paper

Miki Willa

I did two very different projects today. I had another piece of the pink paper so wondered what it would do for a sunset. We have seen so many beautiful sunsets here. This one was on the North Shore. When we first moved to Hawaii, we would take drives around the island just to look at the water. Sometimes we sketched, but most of the time we took photographs. I am so glad we have all these reference photos. For a long time, I didn't try to paint sunrises or sunsets. I was sure I couldn't begin to express my feelings about them. I was also unsure about my ability to "get them right." For me, this one really captures the awe of seeing the sun setting slowly into the sea. I am really pleased about getting the highlights in the water. The horizon line is a bit skewed, but it works for me. It is really fun to have my paintings sit where I can look at them throughout the day. I was not sure about this at 6:30 this morning, but by 3:00, I really liked it.

On a completely different note, I also decided to do a quick sketch based on one of the 36 views of Mt. Fuji that Hokusai did. Tomorrow, I will do a post about his life and his art. Think of this as a teaser. I was limited to my school set of Crayola colored pencils, so I don't have the colors all right. I think I captured the feeling, however. He was a very interesting character. Come back tomorrow to learn more.

In the style of Hokusai

Crayola colored pencils in sketch book

Miki Willa

This is a very shameless advertisement. We are leaving Hawai'i, so we have a wonderful house for sale. I know someone out there is planning/desiring to move to Paradise. Please contact me and I will get you all the information.

Tranquility

Tranquility

7 x 13 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

My friend Nancy paints the most exciting and vibrant skies. She uses colors I would never think to use. When I was looking at the reference photo for this painting, I wanted to see if I could get that kind of excitement. The colors in the photo are very subtle, so I had to push them. When I was done, I realized that I had kept my hands away from the daring colors that Nancy might have used, but I was pleased with the overall results. When I was done with the sky, I knew I had to put the waves in, but I was very hesitant. My experience with waves has not always been that positive. I thought about all the things Maggie Price said in her workshop, and all the wonderful waves my husband, Tom, has painted, and I plunged ahead. I had a very good reference photo, and I paid attention. I think I may actually learn to do waves after all.

During this season when we think about giving, here is something you can do that will help a great deal with little effort. Go to http://www.freerice.com and challenge your vocabulary knowledge while you help feed the world.

Buttermilk Sunset

Buttermilk Sunset

7 x 9 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

When I was growing up, my father and I loved to drink buttermilk. I loved the patterns the milk made on the sides of the glass as the cool drink disappeared. We used to see the same pattern in the sky on high cloudy days. I haven't seen that kind of sky for many years. That is, until I moved to the islands. One late afternoon, on my way home, I rounded the corner of my street to be greeted by a wonderfully vivid buttermilk sky sunset. That, I had never seen before. I had my new camera with me and hurridly found the right setting before taking several shots as the sky faded. I decided to paint this as my second cloud study.

Clouds, clouds, clouds

Kaua'i Sunset

8 x 10 soft pastels on Canson

Miki Willa

I have decided to focus on sky paintings for a time. More specifically, I want to work on clouds. I have selected some photographs we have taken over the last couple of years in case we needed cloud references. Some are sunsets, like this one. This was taken from the beach at Barking Sands on the west end of Kaua'i, in August of this year. I kept taking pictures, waiting for the brilliant pinks and oranges that I knew would come. I gave up before that happened, but I was very happy with this shot, even though there are few pinks. While I was painting this, I wanted to get the feeling of the underside of the big cloud on the right. I also wanted to show the glow of the sun behind this group of clouds. I almost left off the small island on the horizon, but decided it made sense in the composition, so left it in.

To Blend of Not to Blend

Sunset

8 x 10 soft pastels

Art Spectrum Colorfix

At last, I have finished the 10 in 30 challenge! This is the last painting in the series. I will be uploading the whole series in WC later today. If you are interested, go here.

One of the biggest questions that came up during this challenge was the "blending" question. I have read several pastel books, listened to pastel artists talk about their work, and taken classes and workshops. Everyone seems to have a different idea about blending. Some blend only water. Some say it is okay to blend where you want a smooth look, especially in still lifes. Others say that blending completely dulls the painting by flattening out all the pigments. Is there really a right way?

I started out blending everything because it was the only way for me to get hard edges, or soft edges for that matter. I used my fingers for everything. I gradually stopped blending anything and tried to learn to love the textured finish. Now, I do selected blending.

Often, I blend the first or second layers in certain areas, then add textured strokes for details and highlights. I use my fingers still, but have added tissue in some instances. I have also done some sky blending by using NuPastels over the softer Ludwigs and Great Americans.

Today's painting is a mixture of both. I left the sky unblended for a dramatic effect. The reference photo was taken at sunset on the North Shore of Oahu at a place called Mokulaea. I was amazed that no one was sitting in these chairs. I did, right after I took the pictures.