Weekly OP Sketch Thread Jan 12-18

[lacey sprocket]

This sketch thread is open to all Oil Pastelists. You are invited to share any sketching you've been doing this week, be it detailed ones, quick ones, ideas for paintings or value studies. Basically, just show us what you're working on! There is NO time limit, so knock yourselves out!

It would be great if you could share with us the paper and pastels you are using, as well as the size of your sketch. We do love the details!

I'm starting a new part time job working in a local gallery tomorrow! I'm allowed to paint while I'm working and I'll have wifi, so maybe I'll end up posting more often. Sweet!

[wabbitt]

Yay, Lacey! You sound excited, but when do you not? LOL. I miss seeing your OPs & collaborations.

[Pat Isaac]

Wow, Lacey, that is just great, and time to paint too!!!

Pat

[Scarefishcrow]

Cool opportunity, Lacey!! Thanks for hosting as usual. Hope to see you around even more, now!

Bill

[Yusuke]

Hi Lacey,
Thanks for hosting as usual. Part time job at a local gallery with chances to paint sounds great. Hope to see your sketches uploaded from the gallery.

Well, I have sketched a pair of Japanese sweets called yomogi mochi or kusa mochi, a variation of Daifuku (nobody knows here..??). Senneliers on A4-sized sketchpad.

[wabbitt]

Yusuke - fabulous bowl & baby jacket at the end of last week's thread. I love the shine of the varnish and the richness of the texture you captured.

I know what mochi is (love it). Is the white that dusting of flour to keep the mochi from sticking? However, I'm lost at 'Daifuku.'

[Yusuke]

Thanks, Julie.

Yes, they are flour to keep them from sticking.
I found a information on daifuku at Wiki. Hope it will help you know what it is...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daifuku

[Scarefishcrow]

Yusuki,
Wonderful sketch and Julie, impressed you even knew the flour on them.

Sounds like a sweet pastry. Interesting green color.

Bill

[Pat Isaac]

Great sketch Yusuke and I'm always interested to learn of the different foods. These sound very yummy and I do like the green color, kind of minty.

Pat

[robertsloan2]

Those sound so tasty after I read the Wikipedia entry. Thanks for explaining them, Yusuke. They look so real I could pick them up off the page, and I'm used to candy and some pastries being dyed various bright colors to appeal.

Today I've got something that isn't a rock! My friend Lisa came over and she brought the old set of Loew-Cornell oil pastels that I passed on to her after I bought my first artist grade ones. So I was able to chart them and do a sample piece for the review of them that I forgot to write before passing them on.

I worked from a photo I took while Kitten and Karl were courting. She brought in a couple of corsage orchids Karl gave her and put them on my table to draw, so I got plenty of photo references.

Here it is, Orchids in Loew Cornell on black mat board:

[christinemlr]

Absolutely lovely Robert. I really like the life and intensity, not just the colour, but the lively shape and the few simple strokes in the vase set them off so well. So these are cheap OPs? Just shows what can be done. Real good.
Xina

[Pat Isaac]

Nice painting of the orchids, Robert. They really pop out on that black paper.

Pat

[Scarefishcrow]

Robert, Nice "sparkle" to the orchids with the bits of black showing here and there. That was one of the things John Elliott always loved about OP!

Bill

[hoakley]

OK - I should know better, but here is my first sketch post, with more detailed explanations below it. Hopefully you will recognise that it is a copy of a Dutch master, rendered as a quick initial value study using Sennelier 036 Burnt Sienna and 001 White on Clairefontaine Pastelmat paper, 170 lb or 360 gsm, 7 x 9.5 inches (18 x 24 cm), dark grey colour.


Wendell and Bill's exchange about starting OP students with just primary colours got me thinking that I should do what I had half a mind to - work through some of the classical exercises using OPs. Armed with Juliette Aristides' Classical Painting Atelier, I therefore thought it would be worthwhile doing Exercise 1, the Monochrome Master Copy, as a transition from drawing to painting. So here it is, with a rather rough and ready sketch in graphite of Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring, one of my favourite paintings. It is going to be especially good for me, as I don't find figures easy, and usually try to avoid faces. I will work on this, aiming to get it up to a decent monochrome copy, and post the result if I am not too ashamed.

Howard.

[hoakley]

I nearly forgot - this Pastelmat paper is seriously toothy! This first sketch was (as you will notice) extremely hard to blend out much, but hopefully as I get the layers on it will prove worth the effort.

Howard.