It seems that I have neglected this blog for awhile. I have been involved in doing illustrations for my son Dave K"s chapbook, and undertaking a rather involved restoration piece.

   This painting came to me in pieces since much of the paint and canvas were missing as well as loss of paint where the canvas was intact . At least the figures were more or less intact.I accepted this job in the summer since I had an intern interested in watching a restoration project but unfortunately by the time I had it back on the stretcher and ready to do the patching the summer was over and she was back to school- unfortunate since this would have been an interesting project to watch.            

The first thing I did was reline it with a new canvas then I had to fill the the holes where the old canvas did not exist any more. There were a number of gaps and this step took me me quite a while.

Here is an image of the left hand figure which shows all the gaps in canvas and paint.

This painting reminded me of the Pre-Raphaelite school of painting of which Dante Gabriel Rossetti. and John Everett Millais were the most prominent. They were a group of painters, poets and art critics modeled on the Nazarene movement who attempted to revive spirituality in art.  This movement started in Germany and was termed nazarene because they clothed their figures in more Biblical raiment.  They sought to return to the abundant detail, intense color and complex compositions of the early Renaissance. preferably before Raphael,

 The Pre- Raphaelites were interested in medieval art so there is a spiritual component to their works. Although this painting makes me think of this group, it is far less developed than they were in composition and execution but it retains the feel of this group.  This painting does have its figures in biblical raiment but it also has a medieval feel because they are in a chapel setting  and one is praying

I was conscious of these elements when  I was doing the pinpointing since the clothing was done with impasto but the background and figures were more smoothly painted.

I am still working on this painting since the owner brought to my attention some elements in the background that my camera did not capture. There was also so much loss of paint that it could not be seen.

I will update you on this painting as i move forward. It has been an interesting process

 

 

    What lovely weather we are having these days but I suppose it should be expected- it's May. I have not written anything on this blog in a while and am not ready to discuss my projects as they are still in flux.

I was cleaning my office- it really needed it and I came across a paper I wrote about my art teacher who was really an inspirational and at times maddening teacher- I will recap some of it here and try to find one of her paintings to show you.

( Here is an example of one of her florals.)

My Introduction to Ann Schuler came in the fall of 1967 after I graduated from High School. We were a small enclave of full time students - 5 or 6 of us-  the rest of her students were older who came once or twice a week.

 I was thrilled with the atmosphere of Teach's studio where one learned how to mix paints and make one's pastels. Teach ( so named since there were 5 Annes and I had just tread "Up the down staircase"). Teach always had several commissions going as well as works she was restoring so it was great to see the progression of these projects. Hans, her husband, a sculptor was working on his 7 foot minute man in the middle of the studio. It was commissioned for one of the armed forces building in Washington DC

(This is a painting of her dog Rudy who was there when I was attending classes)

I found Teach's way of teaching and demonstrating of immense value and greater inspiration. It was amazing what she could do with a large brush. One of my friends, April who was a dancer was posing one time and teach was able to do a lovely portrait of her with a large brush- a quick flick and there was an eye, a dash and a flourish there and there was her mouth. She made it look so easy!

She was also a great experimenter- I remember all the different ways she tried preparing copper on which to paint. She was trying to find the manner the Dutch used- even baking it in the oven trying to get the right finish. Nevertheless, most of the experimenting went into cooking the black oil, messing with the the temperature changes as well as cooking times . 

(One of her lovely paintings of the nude)

   On one occasion it was my turn to cook the oil. Now mind you this was a time consuming process- at least 4 hours!. You had to put litharge(pure lead) into raw linseed oil and cook it over heat counting it between 210 and 220 fahrenheit, using a candy thermometer. During this time I left it to do something else- a very big no no since it was so flammable. Anyway it went above 220 and basically burnt-.Teach was really furious because she thought I had ruined it. However a week later she tried painting with it and loved it which means I had to go into detail exactly all the steps I took. The one thing about black oil is you had to wait a week for it to form a sediment at the bottom. if it did not then it was undercooked. 

Teach, for me, was a very inspiring teacher encouraging and often pushing us to strive for the perfection of the masters. Her insistence that we always study and learn , her kindness and encouragement have colored the way I approach not only my artwork but the way I teach.

    I am feeling quite organized which is a nice feeling since it is not always the case. In my last post I talked about the use of charcoal or pencil with sanguine chalk. Today I will go through some Master drawings showing variations on the use of this technique

Here is a drawing by Francois Boucher- an artist of the Rococo period who is more well-known for his nudes. Boucher used this technique to enhance the three dimensiality of the face. If you notice most of the face is the paper color, the darkest part is charcoal and he has used the sanguine chalk to enhance the roundedness of the cheek, the lip color and some highlights in the hair. The lightest light he used white chalk. this technique when used in portraiture or the figure can show a lot of sensitivity and emotion.

On the other hand sanguine chalk can be used with great effect by itself. Note this use of the chalk in Jean-Louis Fragonard"s rendering of a landscape. Sanguine chalk, as you can see here, can offer the artist greater nuances than the pencil depending on the pressure. Some of this may be due to its color which, in my view is more pleasing than just black on white but the pencil has a tendency of being more linear and it takes a bit of concentration and thought about how hard or soft ones marks need to be. Sanguine chalk, on the other hand is much easier to create a soft effect though as you can see from this drawing it can also be precise,

Peter Paul Rubens also used this technique to great effect. It is also a way of portraying flesh without using a lot of color especially if you were doing studies for a bigger painting. Rubens frequently did drawings and even small paintings in preparation for his larger pieces.

Finally Hubert Robert, a painter of the landscape who depicted architecture, and ruins of old civilizations in his paintings. He used the sanguine chalk exclusively in his predatory drawings. Note the nuances in the darks as well as the lights.

I hope these examples may make you want to try this yourself if have not already done so. It is a lot of fun to use.

Art materials

       It has been brought to my attention that people may be interested in the art supplies I use and why  therefore,I will begin with my favorite drawing mediums. 

I really favor charcoal and sanguine chalk when I draw.

 Nitram charcoal is my favorite brand- it is square and comes in HB, B and very soft in very large sticks. It was a french company at first but then it was bought by a canadian company. For the most part it is very consistent  and you can sharpen them to a very sharp long point. There is a sand paddle you can get that does a marvelous job of sharpening and it lasts a long time which makes it worth the price.

  Below is a drawing I did using these materials

The sanguine chalk I like to use is either creatocolor originally Hardmuth and I usually use a metal holder to use it.

I love the sanguine chalk and this brass holder is just the right thickness for me. It is, however, hard to find the narrow ones. One finds the thicker ones more often so if you do find a narrow one -just get it- since one never knows when you will see it again. Other brands I like are generals though they are harder and more like a pastel in a way.

I am not a fan of conte as I do not think it is easy to use and its texture does not suit my way of laying down marks.

Below is a drawing of my student Jessie I did a while ago and I used very little charcoal mostly sanguine and white chalk on this marvelous paper my father -in -law gave me 

i wish this paper were still available but alas it has been discontinued along with a lot of other favorite art supplies. must be Murphy's law that if you really like a surface the manufacturer will discontinue it.

I am also very fond of using the sanguine chalk/ pencil combination when I do smaller drawings

I learned this technique when I was living in France and went to see two exhibits of french drawings, which made me wantI to try it and I have never really gone back to just black and white. I feel it gives n extra dimension to the subject. One can get so many more nuances with sanguine chalk than with pencil or other black on white medium. 

It is only recently that I have found this type of drawing is called a drawing 'a trots crayons' ie. with 3 pencils- who knew.

Next time I will try to talk about some artists of the past that I admire who used this technique . So till next time

      It"s January and it"s pretty cold out there, so needless to say I am not painting outside although I know there are some hardy plein air painters who do. 

    Instead I have been focusing on studies of the nude and trying to make compositional  studies involving the figure in nature. Also I have been working on some gouache on an interesting board that really lends a feeling of oil. Above is the first painting I did on this board made by Davinci- its called a dual sided board.. I have been enjoying working with it.

here is a little oil done on the same board. I need to tinker with this one a little bit more but I like the effects I am getting.

As for the nude studies- I am trying some compositional things with the figure studies. Here is a pastel study of one I am now doing in oil

I basically focussed on the figure here but my oil has a rocky landscape since the figure will be spear fishing. I will post it when I am closer to finishing.

Finally over Christmas I had an interesting commission . One of my former students wanted a pastel of my studio for her future studio.

  

    That is all for now. I will talk to you again next time

        

      

     I have been very excited as I have finally been able to take a Robert Liberace course on drawing the figure. Granted I could not swing the full course with critiques but I took the one with the class and auditing the critiques. It has been very exciting and inspiring to say the least. I have admired his work for some time especially his drawings which I think are exquisite and he has such a large knowledge of anatomical parts of the body. You should look him up

   I have always loved drawing the figure and got a good base at the Schuler School where I went in the late sixties early 70"s but they did not teach the figure per se. They did however give me a firm base of anatomy and schematic drawings on  which I have built ever since.

Our first couple of assignments were the torso of the male figure. here is the first one i did

Here is another and the Ecorche drawing I did of the same figure. This was a lot of fun though hard

  

We proceeded tp painting after that and ended up with the portrait. Below is my first attempt.We focused mostly on the torso but i would like to finish this one as i like the way it has developed. I am working on two others and a portrait that i will post later.

This has been a very satisfying experience.

Till next time

 

 It seems like it is time for me to write another post on my blog. Although I try to be regular about it, it seems time simply flies by me. Therefore when My son Dave, who is a writer in Baltimore sends out his blog, I know its time for me to write mine. He is amazingly regular. he writes on tiny letter if you want to check him out.

Actually I have been working on a number of things: The first being a conservation of a painting for my sister.It's rather large 28 x 26 and it was supposed to be a tempera on canvas. However I discovered that it is actually an oil though it could have some tempera in there somewhere. There was a period before Van Eyck finally found the good oil paint formula when they combined the two. This painting though dirty was really full of fly feces which had to be removed by scraping gently with a scalpel-. here is an image of the painting

I also had to add a new piece of canvas to the edge and discovered the painting had been reduced so I added the piece back after consulting with my sister. I am still working on this painting so I will take another pic when it is done

My sister has a good friend Emily M who likes my work and she really liked a piece I had done several years ago and sold, so I told her I could re-do it in a different format so I did working on Uart paper rather than pastel mat ( my favorite paper) and adding some tops of buildings . I also handled the foreground darks slightly differently with a combination of purple, blue, dark brown and very dark green- no black at all.  I also wanted to get the detail of the electric wires and lights more precisely which  the Uart paper allows you to do.I liked the way it turned out

It is going to go to a friend of hers in California so I will be packing it myself before sending it off.

I also have been working on a color values workshop which happened last sunday. We worked in gouache because the mixing mimics oil painting but dries faster considering it is a water based paint. Although only a couple of students attended, i think it went well and hopefully it will impact their future paintings. here are a couple of examples of my studies for it

This is a house in Gettysburg. I did it using a limited palette of cad yellow ,orange, a carmine red, ultramarine blue, prussian blue and black. Very interesting the color mixtures one can make with just 3 of this colors. This one I used yellow orange and blue

Next time I will show you the window encased in stone and explain the mixtures I used in that one so until next time.

     

      It seems we all have settled into  a covidness with the wearing of masks and massive cleaning episodes. For me and my studio we are slowly getting to a 'new normal" . I have had time though to work on the illustrations of my children's book and to finally finish them. now we wait for the book to be published so the ball is out of my court

 With the Illustrations finally finished, however,I was somewhat at a loss at what to create next. I find when I have an involved project like a large portrait or a series of illustrations, it is all encompassing and very fulfilling so when it is finished there is a bit of a let down....

 I have started some smaller landscapes and am working on a very different art conservation project but I really needed the proverbial shot in the arm.  

Robert Liberace, an artist whose figure and portrait drawings I admire had a zoom demo which iIreally wanted to do, but did not try since I never seem able to attend his workshops- either I am too late or cannot afford it -so I did not attempt it . However he posted several reference photos of the model he used and I purchased them. She is lovely and was dressed in medieval attire so I chose one and did a drawing this morning. It needs more darks but so far I am pleased. I am planning on doing a painting but want to do several drawings first. Here is what I did this morning

I am pretty pleased with it though It needs stronger darks and work done on the hand. I will be doing some more drawings  of this subject.

In addition to this fun exercise, I have been doing some pastel landscapes of sunsets. One of these I tried on a surface of metal with a sound for pastels. It did not turn out too badly, although I personally think it is too stiff for my way of doing pastels. I have a commission for a friend of my sisters and I wanted to see how it would work but I think I will do it on Uart paper as the detail will be easier

I still need to put detail in the poles and the lines but at least you get the idea.

That is all for now. I will be discussing my conservation project in the next blog so till then

My projects during the weird covid Time

    What a really odd period of time all of us are going through; with quarantines and masks as well as social distancing. Many artists have navigated to zoom to teach but I have found it very impractical and I would need more technical equipment which I cannot afford right now and then there would be the learning curve....

Instead I have been teaching small classes- no more than 5 or 6 and I have been able to finish my illustration project. I have been illustrating a book whose author is a speech pathologist and he is telling his own story about a horse with whom he was very close and their adventures in jumping competition complicated by the fact that the horse loved butterflies and would veer off during any jump or run to race after them. I feel i can show you a couple because now both the author and the publisher has seen them so i will give you a sneak peak

This is the first one and it is a combination of pen and ink colored pencil and gouache

Here is another a little farther along in the book. I like to mix color with black ink and use color portions as the main focus. Although I did not do that in every illustration. I am nearly finished with illustrations unless they want a small one here and there

I also have been working on greens in very light circumstances. There is an artist on Instagram whose work I admire, especially how he handles the greens .His name is Timoshenko - at least that is his instagram name.You should look him up and see how he handles his greens. They are muted so lots of pinks and oranges in the mix but they give a wonderful effect of brilliant light.

Here is one piece where I have been trying to get his effect in the bright greens. This little 8 x 10 is done in gouache on a new surface. I like using gouache in the field since it has similar properties to oil painting but is easier done small and has a similar effect. if I like the piece I can re do it in larger format in either pastel or oil if I think the effect would be better. This was done at Price Park not far from where I live.

Coronavirus creativity

What a lovely day today ! Several of my adult students and I have removed ourselves from the studio to the great outdoors. Today we went to Bur-mil park where a couple of us did ink drawing, a couple did oil paintings and one did a really nice pastel. I must say I got my exercise going up and down the hill since two were up the hill and two were down. We have also been to Price park and next week we plan on going to the Greensboro Arboretum. My sister anI went walking there and there some really nice things to paint along the riverbed there.
 Since then we have also gone to Fisher park which has some wonderful stone bridges as well as wonderful trees to do. here is one of my ink was efforts

This coronavirus quarantine has made me get a little creative when it comes to teaching and when I panic because there isn't enough money to pay bills I fill out my form for Arts Greensboro. What a wonderful organization that is. They are helping artists: fine arts, Music, theatre etc weather this financial storm a lot of us are going through so If you are a good wage earner and you can afford it, give to them. They have really helped me out this week!!!! And they were able to help 68 others as well solely on donations.

that is my news for now. I will write soon

  It seems everyone is in panic mode due to the coronavirus. It"s a shame really as I believe people are really overreacting. Unfortunately for me it has had a very big impact on my small school. No-one is coming even though our studio is squeaky clean at this point and since fewer students are coming there would be lots of space between students. Not that I don't think the virus is serious- I do but not to the point where you feel you must hoard food and toilet paper- what is that about anyway.

On the plus side, I have plenty of time to thoroughly clean shelves and finish my illustration commission which I worked on today. I cannot show it to you yet since the person who wrote the story hasn't really seen them yet.  I, however have been working on a big pastel landscape and here is the study in gouache that I did for it

It is on illustration board which is one of my favorite surfaces for gouache. I have combined a photo that a former student left with images from Ouessant  where I have been. The rocks are incredible there. it is a very windswept island off the coast of Brittany in France.

I also finished my restoration of the De Heem still-life which turned out well and was a real pleasure to work on. Those artists of the Baroque period could really paint. It was in incredible shape given its age.

Here is a detail of it cleaned . I really enjoyed working on this painting and am a little sad that it is finished.

I will be posting more often probably during this corona virus period since I will have more time -so till next time.

      Happy warm day in february! Can you believe it!. I however chose to spend my day working on this incredible painting that I am conserving for a client. It is a still-life of fruit by De Heem, a Dutch painter of the 17th century- one of a family of De Heem's. The more famous one did flowers but you will find this one, his son I believe in museums well.

Here it is after I had just started. As you can see it is still very dark except for the fruit where I had just started surface cleaning. It had been restored before and relined so I took the old lining off and scraped as much of the old glue so that the new lining would adhere well. Then I stretched it on a board with tacks while i fixed the old stretcher and frame. Actually it"s one of my students who did it and its fabulous because we were able to keep the integrity of the support. Very important to keep as much of the original as possible.

Actually this painting is incredible considering how old it is. Hardly any loss of paint and not much in the way of craquelure- you know those little cracks that paintings get with age. Well this one doesn't"t have it.

Here is a close up of it father along in the cleaning process. Amazing isn't it. I love working on really good paintings, One learns so much! This is a Vanitas painting which shows the passage of time with bites and rot beginning in some of the fruit and a number of flies and moths here and there. 

I will post the whole painting when I have finished and you will be able to see all the little rot and deteriorating places.

That is all for now

       My students and I have been working hard to put together our Winter Show. I have some absolutely wonderful people who I am privileged to teach. I had marvelous help cleaning on thursday and friday and a couple who paint together hung most of the entire show in two hours. i can tell you it was an incredible feat! I was sooo grateful especially as their sons were coming in town and Susan had to bake. Another newer student came to reclean on saturday morning while the hanging was going on and brought loads of cookies as well as her time. She was amazing and I was so grateful. Another student brought gluten free cookies which means I could have some and yet another brought a bottle of wine which I have saved for tonight.
   My assistants Anthony and Thomas came in the early afternoon and hung the late arrivals as well as my paintings and theirs.,which  means our entire show was up and running by 3 on Saturday- unheard of. Usually we are there till 7 or so at night. So the studio looks wonderful and if you did not come yesterday, try and come tonight from 6 to 9. there are lots of goodies and tonight there will be wine for the adults.

I have painted some newer pieces for the show and other students were madly trying to finish theirs in time, but fortunately everything came together and it is a wonderful show.

         Fall is here at last bringing milder heat and warmer light. I love this time of the year.  I love to go plein air painting during this time- not so much green! I will however be glad when cooler weather prevails.

My Studio had an Open house on Sunday Sept 8th. We open the studio so the community can come and have a look and ask questions about classes or any other art making topic. Some advanced students have their work up along with the other instructors and myself. We usually have two demonstrations .  This year I  did a demo in oil of a landscape in Germanton I have always wanted to paint.
  I have been painting on wood lately and really like the way it feels and the way the painting looks when it is finished.  Later in the Afternoon, Anthony Pfohl,Jr did a watercolor demo of a donkey from a picture he took when he went to Petra. in Jordan.The Open house went well though attendance was light but that I think was due to the Folk festival and there were other things going on this weekend as well.

We did a lot of cleaning and repainting of the studio and some rearrangement so everything looks nice .Hopefully we can keep it that way because in December we will have our annual winter show which showcases the student's work. So look out for it it will be December 8th and 9th.

On another note, The Pastel Society of North Carolina has their annual members show at the Ambleside Gallery. it should be up until the 28th. I have a piece in it- a snow scene

Its called "Fallen Giant" so go and check it out along with all the other incredible pastels there.

                August is such a slow month sometimes and it is soooo hot! I taught a plein air class in the evening for 4 mondays . During the first two we did drawings followed by  pastel and the last evening we did oil. Since my students were more interested in watching me, I spent the last class doing a demo. I was trying to show them  how one goes about starting and developing a painting outside. it is A bit different  from working in the studio. I usually work on carton which is a kind of cardboard and use fastmatte paints . These set up fast so you can continue with regular oils after and get the piece more finished.

I  really liked the way the sky turned out but wasn't too happy with the water . I will be going back to the scene to finish up. I copied it on wood however and preferred this format better since my area of interest was the sky which was magnificent and it usually is here at Lake Higgins

I

This is not yet finished and it is a lot crisper in reality so I will have to take a better picture. before I post it as finished.

I have also been creating some small pastels One of which was accepted into Pure Color an international online show. I must say I was pleased to be accepted since it was out of such a large pool of entrants. Here is my painting:

I had fun doing this one. This is the first time I did a pomegranate in pastel. Usually I use oils so it was a nice change of medium. 

Our open House is coming up In September but more about that in my next blog.

Happy Summer Everyone, Although for me it has been creeping along very slowly. its hot and one of my sons moved in with me which has been full of turmoil for both him and me. Nevertheless I have been able to accomplish some interesting project.

  A recent art restoration project was a beautiful landscape that was badly damaged. it entailed relining it as well as patching and inpainting. The artist whoever he is painted his trees in the most beautiful way. i did a small copy of the tree part of the painting to learn his technique.

He seems to have done a warm brown underpainting then painted his leaves on top leaving some of the underpainting showing. It creates the perfect value change from the darker tree against the lightness of the sky values. he also creates his greens from black and yellow adding blue here and there. Very interesting and I have been trying to incorporate this technique in the way I paint.

Here is the original from which I did the little narrow painting. Gorgeous isn't it?

An Interesting workshop experience

  It has been a very long time since I have posted on this blog. I became discouraged because my blog never seemed to receive any feedback, but I have just attended a very interesting workshop, during which I not only learned an interesting pastel technique but have also decided to come back to writing on this blog.
 I attended a Rita Kirkman workshop. If you don't know her work, she does a lot of animals and people, notably a series on Renaissance people.
During the workshop not only was the surface different, but also the ground applied to gatorboard- a much harder surface than I usually like but the format is much different as well. It was so very interesting to do something so different and the effect was looser as well, some of which I liked and but some areas I would prefer more finished. I will be experimenting more with this and posting my results.  Below is the one I did which I preferred.

I have had an interesting time with my latest restoration project. My friend Betsy had a lovely old painting which had fallen on something and was badly torn. She asked if I could fix it and So once I saw it and realized what a gorgeous painting I said I would do my best.

As you can see its a lovely painting of a hunting dog and his master getting ready to go hunting. J.M. Tracy, the artist who painted this work, was well known for his portrayals of hunting dogs and their masters. It was painted in the 1870's or 80's . Thank goodness the rip was not in the figures.

The canvas was extremely brittle so I had to use conditioner before relining it with a new canvas, patching then inpainting. It has taken quite a long time ,but it is such a lovely painting that it was a joy working on it.

This is how it looked partly finished. I am nearly finished now and just need to varnish it. One learns so much about painting when you have to restore really good paintings which hopefully will have an impact on my own painting.

It has occurred to me in the process of restoring some of the older paintings that the canvases used were perfect. The surface was so much smoother and without blemish than our modern ones are. Granted, they used white lead in their ground which is really better than our more modern substitutes albeit unhealthier. I would love to get my canvases at least closer to that quality than I have  up to this point.I guess I will be experimenting with my grounds to see if I can get it closer to theirs.

I have had an interesting time with my latest restoration project. My friend Betsy had a lovely old painting which had fallen on something and was badly torn. She asked if I could fix it and So once I saw it and realized what a gorgeous painting I said I would do my best.

As you can see its a lovely painting of a hunting dog and his master getting ready to go hunting. J.M. Tracy, the artist who painted this work, was well known for his portrayals of hunting dogs and their masters. It was painted in the 1870's or 80's . Thank goodness the rip was not in the figures.

The canvas was extremely brittle so I had to use conditioner before relining it with a new canvas, patching then inpainting. It has taken quite a long time ,but it is such a lovely painting that it was a joy working on it.

This is how it looked partly finished. I am nearly finished now and just need to varnish it. One learns so much about painting when you have to restore really good paintings which hopefully will have an impact on my own painting.

It has occurred to me in the process of restoring some of the older paintings that the canvases used were perfect. The surface was so much smoother and without blemish than our modern ones are. Granted, they used white lead in their ground which is really better than our more modern substitutes albeit unhealthier. I would love to get my canvases at least closer to that quality than I have  up to this point.I guess I will be experimenting with my grounds to see if I can get it closer to theirs.

Brittany- Land of My Heart

     Drizzle- Rain -with occasional bouts of sunshine, and wonderful things to see,  is how I would describe my trip to Brittany in France this past September. I had the opportunity to go, thanks in large part to my ex-husband who gave me a frequent flyer for the trip over. I have a lot of family there so I scrimped and saved so I could go.

 It was wonderful! - I was able to visit with Aunts and cousins I hadn't seen in fifteen years! I was also so inspired by the scenery. Its really lovely there with lovely terrain, really neat castles and picturesque villages as well as some wonderful churches, filled with incredible art both sculptural, architectural and painterly. Here are a couple of images:
                                                                                                       le Folgoet- interior

Locronan        

Is it a wonder then That I am so inspired!. I have been working on some pieces from my sketches and photographs and here is one I finished which shows a view of the port of L'Aber-Wrac"h, located in the finisterre ( lands end) of Brittany.

This is a pastel and was done from my sketches mainly with the aid of a photo for stone details.
Painting this helped me relive the day which was fun and was a time when it wasn't raining.
 
I have a couple more paintings in process which I will discuss next time so look for it. i am hoping eventually to have enough pieces for a show focussed on this trip.