Oil sketch of Echo

This young chinese woman from Xian, was our sitter at the scout hut this week. I was initially startled by her white wig and thought it may look strange in a painting, but I cannot tell you how much pleasure she was to paint! I have included her photo so you can see her for yourself.

Plums

This is one of my pastels on the la carte support and once again I have used the Terry Ludwig 'intense darks' range. They are incredibly soft pastels but as I like to work my pastels fairly thickly, they suit me well. I never fix my pastels as I find that as long as the support has plenty of 'tooth' and the pastel is well 'keyed in' I do not get any pastel falling away. Fixatives have a tendency to alter colour as the spray is never even enough. If your experience is different and you can advise, I would love to hear from you....

Study of Caroline

This study of Caroline was painted from life over two weekly sessions at the Scout Hut; where I meet regularly with a group of fellow portrait enthusiasts. Caroline is a New Yorker, married to a Brit who is just happens to be an artist and tutor. She knew exactly what was expected of her as she is well used to the demands of painters! I really enjoyed the opportunity to paint her.

Yellow rose

I notice that most of the entries in this week's rose challenge on DPW have opted for the rose 'portrait' whereas I have opted to make the rose my centre of interest within a composition consisting of other elements. This is probably because I don't paint many floral subjects and find roses in particular quite a challenge to paint well... sorry about the pun! I know we should consider the colour shapes and not get too caught up with over describing, but even so, this is a tough one!