Eventide, 5x7 -sold

Eventide, pastel on board by Adriana Meiss

  This small paintings was among the ones I sold at Plowshares in Dec.

  The last two weeks have been just too cold to paint in my studio, but before the cold spell set in I did a winter scene in pastel which I showed to my oil instructor and he suggested I use those same colors in an oil painting I'm working on.

  Oils? Yes! A long time ago when I started with art, oils were my favorite medium, but at the time, the trend in teaching art students was "let them find things for themselves." This approach did not produce good results with me,  as sometimes things worked but the majority did not, so I abandoned them. Now, I feel ready for the challenge of working with them once again, but with good guidance this time around. One big difference though: I find it extremely hard being patient with oil's drying time. This fact makes me appreciate pastel's immediacy even more, so I don't see myself putting my precious sticks away anytime soon.

Fading Light, 9x12"

Fading Light, 9x12" pastel on Ampersand Pastelbord, by A. Meiss

          
    It's been very busy around here but not because I'm painting. It seems that preparing for the show took so much energy away from me that I have not touched a dusty pastel since. I've started to feel the need to paint on a regular basis once again and to encourage myself a little bit, I went to get some beautiful flowers to start a few small sketches.... at least that's the plan for today...

   On opening night at the Edgewood, four paintings were sold, yeah! For the one above, which is in the exhibit,  I played with the original reference photo for  while, and ended up flipping it because it offered a better composition. I know it is very simple but I found it very challenging to paint, mostly because I wanted subdued colors in general, and had to fight the tendency to use brighter ones where they were not really needed. The scene is from the Otisco valley.
           

Silhouettes , 8"x6"

I feel I'm cheating here. The main reason I started this blog was to force myself to paint during the winter, and here I am, posting another painting done a little while ago. You see, my studio is the entrance of our very old house, and in the winter time we reduce our quarters to conserve energy, so the studio area is basically closed. The only time it is used is to let visitors in or when I feel brave enough to do at least a few minutes of work at the easel. Why don't I move the easel to a warmer area?, you might be thinking. Sure I could, but the main reason I don't is because pastel dust can get everywhere. I think it's safer to keep it confined to one area. I'm hoping Santa will feel sorry for me and get me a nice heater for Christmas. That's all I ask. Really! Well, besides the new Gray set of Terry Ludwigs (my favorite pastels)...

Anyway, this is a scene from my backyard looking west. At the time, I was trying to get good pictures of the colors in the sky and clouds, but after printing the photo I found more interesting the back lit house and trees.