A Stand of Aspens - Pastel Original

I started this pastel a week or so ago and didn't get very far on it and had set it aside. I almost tossed it out but tonight felt the urge to work on something and picked it up again.

I find when scanning pastels the scanner really doesn't do the colors justice. It could be my scanner as it is ancient, or the pastels since they have such a reflective quality about them, or both. I replaced the scanned picture I had posted with a photo that represents the colors better.

I think what I like about aspens as much as their leaves in the fall is the bark. It has such wonderful texture and subtle colors about it year round. This happens to be in the spring.

This original pastel is 8" x 10" on velour paper. I used Rembrandt soft pastels and Carb Othellow pastel pencils.

I Received the Brillante Weblog Award from Barb Pask

It has taken me a little while, but I haven’t forgotten that Bark Pask tagged me with the Brillante Weblog Award. This is very much like Tag. It helps us to become familiar with previously undiscovered blogs. How neat is that?! There are so many talented people doing such wonderful things I am truly amazed every time I visit a new blog – it is inspiring!

Any way, thanks Barb for the award and bringing to my attention to other bloggers I haven’t seen before!

So the rules are that if the persons receiving the award decides to participate, they must:
1 - Put the logo on their blog
2 - Add a link to the person who gave them the award
3 - Nominate at least 7 other blogs
4 - Add links to those blogs on yours
5 - Leave a message on each of the blogs nominated.These are my nominations and are included in my links, some may know me but others may not but I admire their art and visit their blogs often:

1. Marsha Robinett
2. Karen Margulis
3. Cindy Haase
4. Kendra Ferreira
5. Jennifer Bellinger
6. Diane Wright
7. Laurie McGinley

I hope you all enjoy reading these blogs - they are truly very talented artists.

Water Pearls - Pastel

This is another pastel that I did last year. I really like how the water pools on the lillypads. The pricing for the original is below, however If you are interested in a giclée print let me know.

Water Pearls
14" x 11" (35.6cm x 28.0cm)
Pastel on Velour
$260 plus $10 shipping and handling in the US
E-mail me for International shipping rates or other inquiries.

To see more of my work please visit my website Karen Hargett Fine Art

Primal Scream - Pastel Original

Primal Scream
14" x 11" (35.6cm x 28.0cm)
Pastel on Velour
$300 plus $10 shipping and handling in the US
E-mail me for International shipping rates or other inquiries.

To see more of my work please visit my website Karen Hargett Fine Art

Great Art DVD and Video Resource

I don't know if you are aware of SmartFlix or not but they rent art and craft DVDs and videos on-line. It is a great way to see if the DVD you thought about buying is what you wanted or not as they can be pretty expensive to purchase.

Most DVDs are $9.99 and you return it after a week in a postage free cardboard mailer that it came in. They provide you with the address label and even the little tape sealers for the mailer. How convenient is that?!

I did have to be put on a waiting list since they only had a limited number of copies but it was well worth it. I just spent the afternoon watching Richard Schmid Paints the Landscape White Pines. I plan to rent more - it was a wonderful way to spend a rainy afternoon.

To see more of my work please visit my website Karen Hargett Fine Art

Finished! Done! It's off the easel!

OK - I've played with this one enough. I've taken it off the easel because every time I walk by it I do something else to it. Add more reflections, take the reflections out, add more rocks, take the rocks out, add more color, less color, darker colors, lighter colors. More. . . Less. . .More. . .Less.

LOL - I've had fun working on it and I'm still trying to figure out how to do reflections and submerged rocks but I'm getting there. All in all I think it looks better than the first post. There are pieces of the other posts I like better but as a whole I'm happy - at least until I walk by it again but I'm finished this time ;-)

8" x 6" Mountain River Landscape Oil on linen cavas panel

To see more of my work please visit my website Karen Hargett Fine Art

Final? Final? Mountain Stream Landscape

8" x 6" Oil Landscape

I've worked a bit more on this painting - flattened out the water so it's not going up hill on the side LOL and put some of the red and yellow reflection in the water. I kept going to a lot of reflection to less and this is what I came up with . I also added more rocks on the banks. I hope it is pleasing and not over done. Your comments & critiques are welcome.

To see more of my work please visit my website Karen Hargett Fine Art

Mountain River Landscape - Final??

I couldn't help myself - I had to do something about the sky and mountain in the background. Then of course one thing prompted another thing - I worked on the water. I think I like it - how about you?

8" x 6" Oil on Canvas Panel

To see more of my work please visit my website Karen Hargett Fine Art

Mountain River Landscape

Saturday I painted with a friend of mine. It was enjoyable. She is an accomplished oil painter and kept me encouraged.
I started this one while I was there and made good progress on it until I came home and then proceeded to mess it up. So I just wiped it off and started again. This is the results. I tried to get a good reflection - hopefully I succeeded. It was a really rocky river bed and I wanted to submerge some of the rocks but I'm still trying to figure out how to get the look of transparent water.

Don't be shy about critiquing my oil painting or offering suggestions - that is one of the ways I learn. I see a lot wrong with it, the sky and mountain are rather blah and may be too cold and doesn't create the depth I had wanted, the trees could be more defined with lights and darks but I see some improvements too so all is not lost. I may still work on this but for now I'm letting it sit for a little while.

It is 8"x6" oil on a canvas panel.

To see more of my work please visit Karen Hargett Fine Art

Pool Balls Finished!

I've finally finished the pool balls painting! There are still things that I could probably spend time on and fix but if truth be told I'm tired of working on it and the person I'm giving it to will be happy with it as is - so I'm calling it finished. I would have liked to have done this looser and may try to do this or a version of it again in a much looser style of painting but I can say that I'm pleased with it the way it is. Ha - looking at it on screen I may correct that highlight on ball #1 - does it ever end? I had a bit of trouble with the numbers as you can tell - they are pretty rough but they will have to do.

My favorite ball is #10.

I find the hardest thing is painting wet on wet. Did anyone else have that problem when you just started oils? What is the secret? I did paint with thinner paint but still in critical areas where I didn't want color to mix when I was painting wet on wet they would mix.

I've found my favorite two brushes so far - at least for this painting. They are Dick Blick's Masterstroke pure sable filbert size 6 and flat size 6.

Any way that is it for this one. I'll let you know how she likes it.

I'm Still Painting

I'm still painting - trying to get the pool balls round and the proper size. I thought I was closer than I am but I can see after stepping away the red and white ball in the front on the left is way out of shape, the yellow one is the too small, the orange and white stripe one needs a bit of adjusting on the stripe and may be too large, then there is the yellow and white one. . .well I guess they all need a bit of adjusting but I'm getting there! That is the most important part - I'm getting there!I'm going to let it dry a bit tonight and start again tomorrow but I thought I'd give you an update. If you see anything that bothers you let me know.

The Art y Pico Award

This month I was honored by Marsha Robinett awarding my blog The Art y Pico Award. This is indeed a pleasure and made even more special to be selected by Marsha whom I admire very much. She is one who never fails to inspire me daily with her art, blog and creative ideas. Thanks Marsha!

I would like to pass this award on to five other artist blogs that have inspired me with what they do every day. I’m sure you will enjoy their blogs as much as I do. Some of these artists may know me and others may not but that doesn’t lessen the admiration I have for these folks in their creativity as artists and bloggers.

Virginia Vaughan
Sharon Wright
Gayle Mason
Karen Winters
Pattie Wall

FYI...The Origin of The Art y Pico Award and Rules if you choose to accept.

You might be interested in the origin of the "Art y Pico Award" The designer of the award puts it like this..."The Arte y Pico Award has arisen from the daily visits that I make to many blogs which nourish and enrich me with creativity. In them, I see dedication, creativity, care, comradeship, but mainly, ART, much art. I want to share this prize with all those bloggers that entertain and enrich me day to day. Doubtlessly, there are many and it will be hard to pick just a few.

The Rules:

1. You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award through creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributes to the blogger community, no matter of language.

2. Each award should have the name of the author with a link to their blog.

3. Award winners have to post the award with the name and link to the blog of the person who gave them the award.

4. Show these rules and the paragraph (above) explaining the awards origination.

Thanks again Marsha and to the five artists I have chosen. . . cheers!

New Painting!

After watching Susan Carlin paint on Sunday afternoon on ustream and getting a great "pep talk" from her I decided to pick up my brushes once again.

Susan was painting a great looking dog. I didn’t try that - sorry. Instead I thought I’d try to paint some pool balls as a gift for a friend at work who will be retiring after 29 years. She plays pool a lot and from what I understand she is very good. I had at first thought of doing them in pastels but then decided this might be a good one to try painting and if it didn’t turn out I would still have time to turn out a quick pastel.


I'm actually excited about this one - it doesn't look half bad so far. I had at first started focusing in on the highlights - there were some pretty cool, detailed, highlights but then took a deep breath and just did a full brush stroke instead and I was OK with how it looked! I'm not finished - I need to get the shape and sizes of the balls correct - especially on the second row - but was so pleased with how it is going I thought I'd share.

What Was I Thinking?!

I don't know what I was thinking when a short while back I made a commitment to paint 100 small oil paintings before the end of the year!

I'm realizing now that may have been a rash statement and a stretch for me to accomplish. In fact my goal was probably off a bit in more ways than one. I want to learn how to paint with oils - to paint really well with oils. More often than not, I've been frustrated with the way the paintings have been turning out - so much so, I haven't even bothered to post them and the whole process has left me rather deflated and questioning everything. That isn't a good creative place to be in.

My art has always been a source of joy for me and I don't want that to change and I was getting bogged down in what I wasn't accomplishing - the 100 paintings. It was making me crazy! So instead of agonizing over the commitment and struggling, I'm going to get back to pastels and graphite on a regular basis and concentrate on doing those really well. Then look around to see about taking some oil painting classes, find a good "how to book" and/or mentor and do the oils on the side, as a hobby so to speak - at least until I get better. Any suggestions on good books etc. let me know.

So after re-thinking what I was thinking, I sat down and did this little pastel, similar to the one oil I tried to do, and I feel so much better now.

The Hay Field

8" x 6" Original Pastel

$100

Wet Canvas Carrier

I'm not sure I'll have the opportunity to use this little trick for carrying wet canvases Virginia Vaughan taught me but it is brilliant. She devised it when she was traveling and didn't have her wet canvas carrier with her.

It's kind of like that old TV show MacGyver. You know, where Mac cleverly escapes the villains by using whatever he had in his pocket, usually his Swiss Army knife, a piece of chewing gum and well you get the idea. I don't know if Virginia had her Swiss Army knife but she did have a blank canvas, clips and some rubber bands.

First you put the clips on all four corners of your painting.

Then you place a blank canvas, face down over the wet canvas. It rests nicely on the clips. I didn't unwrap my canvas for this demonstration but it doesn't have to be wrapped. I would imagine even another dry painting would work well too.

Then you secure the canvases together with rubber bands.

And there you have it a wet canvas carrier - thanks Virginia!