Oil on canvas paper.
Monday night's model. There's still room in my Portsmouth Arts Guild portrait painting class on Wednesday mornings starting March 30.

Panpastel on gray Canford paper with white highlights.
My portrait drawing class at the Portsmouth Arts Guild starts Wednesday morning, 3/16. Two weeks of drawing before the painting class starts, all levels.

The Sofft knife

I found out about the Sofft knife last year when I was watching a David Jon Kassan video. It's a plastic palette knife with a small triangular blade, over which you slip a foam covering. You swipe it across a Pan Pastel and draw with it. I've fallen in love with it- the color is rich, the marks are soft and wide if you use the flat part of the blade, but then you can draw with the edge of the blade. You can also use black charcoal and white pencil to accent/highlight. They don't seem to be sold in any of the local art stores; I ordered mine from Amazon.

Painting Faces...

Carlos was our model last night.
 On March 7 at 7PM I'll be doing a portrait painting demonstration at the East Providence library. It's free, stop by if you're interested.

Classes I'll be teaching this spring- I'm going to be pretty busy for a month or two:
The Portsmouth Arts Guild-
Portrait drawing and painting,  on Wednesday mornings starting March 16.

The Westport Art Group- A first for me, a portrait WORKSHOP!
 Two days, Friday and Saturday, tentative dates are May 13 and 14.
Portrait demo open to the public on Tuesday, April 12 at 6:30.

And, South County Art Association, Portrait Drawing and painting, Thursday mornings at 10AM, starting March 31, 10AM.

Hangin' with mom- sold

Oil on panel, 6" x 6"
Horses and chickens roam freely on Vieques Island. These two were on the side of the road when we stopped to look at the 300 year old Ceiba Tree. I painted this from a photo after I got home.

You can read more about our trip to Puerto Rico at my blog RideWalkHikeBike. http://ridewalkhikebike.blogspot.com

A few more sketches from Vieques

I really don't want to let go of the time spent there! The weather was so great, and I had a sketching partner, Ed Huff- you can see his work here- we spent some lovely mornings in Isabel Segunda with our sketchbooks and watercolors.

 One of the potted plants on the deck...

 Cantina La Reina, downtown Isabel Segunda.

There was a little park in the center of town where we could find shade and sketch the surroundings, like this church tower.

 This was a coffee and breakfast kiosk in the park. The smells of the cooking were wonderful.

Playa Grande was a beach like no other I've ever been on- miles of sandy beach that we had all to ourselves.

Watercoloring on Vieques Island

I did a number of little watercolors while I was on Vieques last week. Most are done on a 6"x 6" block of Fluid watercolor paper. The horizontals are half sheets, about 6" x 3".

These were done at Playa Media Luna (Half Moon Beach), a lovely protected cove (although there should be more space between the two paintings than there is.) My advice, if you're going to paint on a tropical island- bring turquoise!

Vieques, Puerto Rico

Watercolor, 8" x 5"

Puerto Rico was warm and sunny last week, unlike Rhode Island... boy, did we pick the right week to be away. This is the view from the deck of the house that we rented with friends on the island of Vieques, just off the southeast coast of the main island of Puerto Rico. Painting palm trees is a challenge, and the absolute BEST time to attempt it is in the middle of the winter.

Green Skiff, coast of Maine

Oil, 6" x 6"
Another skiff, beached on the coast of Maine. I loved the turquoise color and the distressed surface.

Oil on canvas paper, 12" x 16"

A (disappointed) Patriots fan was our model last night...

Classes I'll be teaching this spring- I'm going to be pretty busy for a month or two:
The Portsmouth Arts Guild- Portrait drawing and painting,  on Wednesday mornings starting March 16.
The Westport Art Group- A first for me, a portrait WORKSHOP! The information is not on their website yet. Two days, Friday and Saturday, tentative dates are May 13 and 14.
Portrait demo open to the public on Tuesday, April 12 at 6:30.
And, South County Art Association, Portrait Drawing and painting, Thursday mornings at 10AM, starting March 31, 10AM.

Bus stop

"Bus Stop", oil on canvas paper, approx. 8.5" x 11"

I wanted to try using some different color combinations than the usual ones so I went to the Pantone website and found a number of combinations using their  "2016 Colors of the Year", Rose Quartz and Serenity (for the rest of us, that's pink and blue).

This particular group of colors seemed perfect for the painting I wanted to do. I tried to stick to these colors or something very close, and of course needed to add a very pale yellow for the lightest areas. Because the painting was going to have a lot of cool colors, I used a pink ground underneath that peeks through here and there.

Save the Bay closing reception

Oil, 8" x 10"- SOLD
The annual Artists for the Bay Show and Sale ends soon. There is a closing reception on the last day, January 30, from 1-3 PM where light refreshments, Bloody Marys and Mimosas will be served. In addition, that day you can get 10% off any art or jewelry purchase. It's such a good cause, consider stopping in and making a purchase- you'll be supporting both local artists and a wonderful organization.