Sunday, September 20, 2009

CTPS Challenge Painting


Here's a piece I knocked out quickly so as to have something fresh for the CTPS challenge painting at the meeting yesterday. I didn't expect to make the meeting but we ended up getting back from our trip a day earlier than originally planned so I was able to go. Since I woke up early and then started fretting that I didn't have a painting for the challenge, I popped out of bed and made one. This one was from one of my vacation photos. The challenge was to draw water. The photo of this creek at the bottom of the trail to Hanging Lake had both still water illuminated by bright sun and also rushing water bubbling over rocks making it even more of a challenge. My husband says this is one of the best ones I've done so far, so perhaps I need to get up in the dead of night and throw pieces together really fast (only kidding). The challenge painting concept is a really good one. Each month the group sets a challenge for the next meeting. Every one who wants to play tries to create a pastel painting to address that topic. It's a wonderful way to stretch yourself doing things you might not otherwise undertake. At the meeting we each show our piece and discuss it and accept advice on how it could be improved. Next month is an abstract or non-objective piece. That is a huge challenge for almost all of us. It's easy to look at abstracts and say how easy they are to make, try making one and you'll see that it takes far more skill than it looks like to come up with a piece you'd be willing to hang on your wall.

My First Award


Exciting news! While I was away on vacation a pastel painting I had entered in The Austin Pastel Society's North West Gallery Show actually won a Merit Award!!! Wouldn't you know the one show opening I couldn't attend would be the one in which I got an award. The idea for "Twilight's Last Gleaming" came from a photo I shot through the window of the car as we were leaving the Central Texas Pastel Society show at the Cultural Arts Center in Temple. There was an incredibly beautiful sunset that night which I really wanted to try to capture. Now I'm really pumped and eager to keep painting and improving.

Refreshed from vacation!





Just back from a 2 week vacation with several new paintings to show off. Colorado was beautiful and so was Santa Fe. I took in the American Impressionist Exhibition at the New Mexico Museum of Art and was lucky enough to fall into one of their free artist demos. Lee Rommell was demonstrating oil painting en plein air (actually the demo was outside but she was using a photo for reference so, it wasn't really a plein air demo although it was billed that way). Labor Day weekend in Santa Fe also meant we got to enjoy a huge art fair which covered the entire central square. Talk about perfect timing! Newly inspired from a day and two nights in Santa Fe we traveled on to Glenwood Springs where I pulled out my own plein air kit and completed the four 8x10 paintings you see here. I also did a couple of watercolor post cards which I mailed off and didn't keep copies. If you got one you know what they looked like.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Deep Eddy


A Plein Air Austin paint out this morning led to this 8x10 study of Deep Eddy Pool in Austin. What a wonderful cool oasis in the 100° F + heat we've been suffering through. Nothing better than painting till you get too hot and then jumping into a very cool pool. Lovely day, wish I could paint there more often. Maybe next year...

Thursday, March 12, 2009

My paintings from the Desmond O'Hagan workshop, Sesimbra Boats and Bonn Flower Market.


















I attended a wonderful workshop with Desmond O'Hagan last weekend. It was incredible to watch Desmond work so deftly with pastel to create fascinating art with such rapid efficiency. His work was absolutely beautiful. I wished I could have had the spare cash to purchase one of his demo paintings, they were so totally worth the price. Not that my work is any reflection on his but I do feel I was able to improve my technique and come out of the workshop with several pieces I was pleased with. Both of the paintings above are pastel on Canson paper.

Sunday, March 1, 2009


Another painting done this weekend is "Lauren's View from Her Kitchen Window". It's a small one but it really captures the incredible view from our friend's kitchen window on Bainbridge Island. Wish I could look at that every evening - heck I might even cook if I had that to look at.
                                               "Sky Play" Pastel on Canson paper
I took a wonderful pastel workshop on creating skies from Denise Mahlke yesterday. I learned a lot and think it shows. I've got a seat for a 3 day workshop with Desmond O'Hagan coming up next weekend, so I should have more to post after that. Got a great deal on some extra large Art Spectrum pastels. I really enjoyed using them this weekend.





Friday, February 6, 2009


This is my first posting so I would like to start with a pastel painting which I was very pleased with. It was completed in a mini workshop last July.  The painting is a view of Lake Pueblo in Colorado. We were there in May of 2007 for my niece's high school graduation. We spent a beautiful day on the water playing with my brother-in-law's catamaran. This painting came out of one of many photos taken that day. The image area is 8.5" by 10.5" and it is matted and framed in a hand made 12"x 16" cherry frame by Ray's Woodworking. It is available for sale at $ 125.00. Please let me know if you are interested. This and other pieces can be seen and purchased at www.jfrederickart.etsy.com
Please let me know what you think. I'm looking for constructive criticism. Thank you for taking the time to look. More to come soon.