The Glass Blowers Garage

The Garage

18 x 12 soft pastels on Wallis Professional White

by Miki Willa

I took the reference photo for this during a recent visit to Viscosity, south of Seattle. Once again, I was intrigued by the geometric shapes and the colors. This particular garage has two openings, but I chose to only do the one on the right because it had a piece of glass parked there. I decided to use a vertical format to stretch the image and give it more interest. I really like the abstract quality that came through in this format. I worked primarily in Ludwig dark purples, reds, and the grays. I also used some Nupastel reds and oranges. The ochres on the glass are Great American. The yellows and golds in the background bricks are a mixture of Ludwig and Great American. I adjusted colors and values as I went which worked out well. My next painting in this series will have a glass blower at work. This will be a challenge for me as I don't normally do figure paintings. Stay tuned for that in a few days.

The glass blowing garage is a place for the glass artist to park pieces he/she doesn't want to cool down, but has to leave for a while. One example of how these are used is when you create a goblet with a stem, bowl, and foot. The separate pieces are parked in the garage until it is time to assemble everything. In the above case, the glass artist was not finished with the process for making a sphere, but needed to take a lunch break. Just amazing what you learn when you hang around artists who work with a different medium than your own.

New Pastels

Yesterday, Tom and I drove up to Mt. Vernon to visit Dakota Art Pastels. We are trying to get everything we need for the upcoming Arizona trip. We needed paper and I was running out of my favorite Terry Ludwig darks. While we were there, I took a look at the new gray set by Terry and fell in love, so that got put in the pile. This morning, I decided to clean out and reorganize my palette. It looks so pretty, I just had to share it with you. The box on the upper left is the new Terry set and the one on the upper right is my set of Unison lights. I realized last summer, when taking a class from Richard McKinley, that I really didn't have very many good lights. Now, I feel ready to tackle the colors of the Southwest.

Visiting Dakota was great fun. I could have ordered on line, but we really wanted to experience the store. I got to look at all the colors I could want before I had to buy them. We could see the true colors of the Art Spectrum paper without having to rely on the computer screen. While we were living in Hawaii, we didn't have much choice but to order online. I enjoyed my shopping much more yesterday.

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.

Happy Earth Day

Rocky Butte WIP

9 x 12 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

I really hope this is not as dark on your screen as on mine. It looked perfectly fine in Photoshop. I have not finished the foreground at all. In fact, I sort of gave up on this because it was not working out, and I ran out of time. After discussing this with my wonderful artist husband, I have agreed to revisit this painting at a later date. I was totally entranced by this place when I was there. I don't feel I captured my feeling entirely. I will keep working at it.

I used my pan pastel sample on this for the sky. I got a very light blue. This is the fourth time using it and I have to say I am not on the bandwagon. I know there are those who just love it, but it is not for me. I used a very light paper, and the pan did not cover, no matter what I did. You can see the yellow showing through near the hill top. In this painting, it worked out well, but I would not be happy if this happened on a darker ground. I also found that blending with stick pastels was programmatical. I will stick with more traditional pastels for the foreseeable future.

Lupine

Lupine

9 x 12 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

When I was small, the lupine were all over this area. This year, there were few healthy plants among the poppies and goldfields. So few, in fact, that people created areas off the paths near the plants to take photos. In doing this, they killed every other living thing surrounding the lupine. This painting shows an area where this happened. It worked out well for me so that I could showcase the lupine, but it is not so great in the long run.

As I look at this photo of the painting, I can see a couple of things I need to address. The shadow area to the right of the lupine needs to be gone, but I need to add the cast shadow area to the left of the plant. Sometimes, in the morning, I don't see these things right away. I will fix this tomorrow, but I don't think I will re-post this. Just try and imagine it.

Overall, I am very happy with this painting. It really expresses what I was seeing and feeling at the moment. I was on a high trail to the east of yesterday's viewpoint. The path you can see is the one my sister-in-law and I walked on Sunday morning. If you followed that path around to the other side of the closest butte, you would come to the bridge from yesterday's painting. The mountains in the background are part of the Tehachapi Range. The buttes are part of the Antelope Buttes area.
Once again, I relied on Terry Ludwig pastels for this painting for the most part. The greens are Great Americans. I really like working with both these brands. I love the square sticks. I have much more success with this shape for all the different kinds of strokes I use. I am so happy that Great American has gone to the square format.

Tomorrow, I will work on a view from the poppy fields to the farmland and mountains to the south of the park. The west part of the Antelope Valley was filled with alfalfa farms when I was growing up. Most of them are long gone now. I was glad to see at least one left.

Painting Small Places

Concrete Weeds

7 x 10 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

I had an idea when setting goals for the year that I would like to do a series of small seemingly unimportant places. The first one was the Poppy from a couple of days ago. That was from a small corner of my old garden. This one is based on a photo I took at the bottom of a set of concrete steps a long time ago. I really like the composition, and I decided to use a complementary pallet. In this case, I used my favorite of blue/lavender and yellow/orange. This combination never fails to get my attention in a positive way.

Now that my pastels seem to be settled in their new homes, I thought I would share what I use. I started this pastel journey with a student set I purchased at the local Ben Franklin craft store. It was fine enough to get me hooked. Then my husband shared his Rembrandts. We purchased a small set of Unisons and a small set of Senneliers. Then Tom took a workshop with Terry Ludwig. It was love at first use. His was my first choice for a couple of years. Last summer, Tom and I decided to try new sets after a Pastel Artists of Hawaii meeting where we got to try different brands. As a result, I now use Terry Ludwig's, Great Americans, Unisons, a small number of Girault and Sennelier. We don't have large quantities, but we are having fun with what we have. Now, if I could only learn to like paper other than Art Spectrum. I really like that surface.

Painting volcanoes

Haleakala 9 x 12 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix
Miki Willa

Since I was painting volcanoes, I decided to dig out a photo I took on my honeymoon to Maui. This is a view from off the highway going to Ka'anapali looking across the bay to Haleakala. I used my set of Great American grays for the volcano. I am enjoying finding places to use them since they are so rich and yummy.

I have used the Helen Iaea Tropical set made by Terry Ludwig for a year or so, and only recently added the Richard McDaniel set of Great Americans and the grays. Terry doesn't advertise the Iaea set, but it is a wonderful general set you can order by calling him. The Great Americans have been a good addition. My husband also ordered a large set of Unisons at the same time. He also picked up the Girault Marine set about the same time. It is nice to have a larger pallett to select from. Of course, the right green is never there, but I am learning to blend.