Sunset Over the Next Ridge - Oil Pastel

"Sunset Over the Next Ridge"       Oil Pastel, 6x8"

$95 plus shipping

Purchase Here 

Here at "Paint Like Nobody's Watching," I have been showing paintings I did awhile ago but never blogged about.  In a comment about the painting on my last post, my friend Carol asked, "How many others are you hiding away?"  I just loved that comment!  Because I am having fun showing work I've been keeping to myself.

I plan to paint again this coming weekend.  Last weekend, my art time was spent at an assemblage workshop with Leo Monahan.  I have mentioned Leo before.  He is quite the phenomenal artist.  His main medium on his website is cut and folded paper, but he also works in collage and assemblage.  Assemblage is "art in boxes," made with found and saved objects.

Leo's students are taking a series of workshops on design thinking, and later on color, eventually making us worthy of learning the techniques of cutting and folding paper.  I have to tell you, I am realizing that far more important to me than the subject of the particular workshop with him is the opportunity to observe how Leo thinks as an extremely creative person.  What a privilege to spend time with this amazing artist!  You want to see someone get a group excited about an old, run over, rusty car part, spend some time with Leo!  Not kidding!  :)

Check him out www.leothecolorman.com

Oh, almost forgot, about my own painting above!  This is a scene from my own neighborhood!  The true, blue ridge...

Thanks for being here... 

Another Oil Pastel Painting

"Splendor"      Oil Pastel with Gouache underpainting   6x8"

 $95 plus shipping

Purchase Here

Show and tell!  This is another one I painted a long time ago and failed to blog about.  Painted from my own photo, I really enjoy the combination of oil pastel on top of gouache and plan to do more with the same method.

Stay snug, everyone :-) 

"Where Will You Go From Here?" Oil Pastel - 30 Paintings in January 2015

Oil Pastel, 3x4"

$30 plus shipping

Purchase Here

The title of this painting is my question for all of us:  "Where Will You Go From Here?"  

We have had a great run with lots of ups and downs, and as this 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge comes to an end, there is a risk of feeling like we are losing something.  Which is always a possibility.  

But so much potential exists for gaining something!  New art friends, new painting methods, new studio habits, and in my case, even a new painting medium...

Let us keep the best of this Challenge going indefinitely and let go of what does not serve us (the pressure to perform).  Let us stick together and continue to support each other as we have through these 30 Days.  

I will look forward to seeing where you all go from here!

Personal Painting Note

I wanted to tell you what happened to me with this painting.  The past few days, I have been very weary of the Challenge and noticing the same happening to many other 30 in 30ers.  I had a migraine last night, so I used one of my "paint-ahead" paintings for my post for yesterday and fully expected I would do the same for the final two posts, today and tomorrow.

Once I released myself from the pressure of having to come up with two more paintings, I did some cleaning at my house and then headed...to the studio!  Where I painted not only the above painting, but also another for the final day's post.  It seems I personally do better when painting feels like a "want to" not a "have to."   Letting myself off the hook brought me right back around to my art!

"Lavender Farm Red Variation" Oil Pastel - 30 Paintings in January 2015

Oil Pastel, 2.5 x 3.5"

This is a variation of yesterday's painting, and I have a couple more to show you coming up soon.  These are actually the first oil pastel paintings I did.  I have learned so much about oil pastels since these first ones, including be careful how you remove the paintings from your board--wash your hands first!  You can see how I boogered this one up in the upper left corner while removing it from the drawing board.  I'm going to try to fix this one up before I offer it for sale.

How to Remove Animal Hair from an Oil Pastel Painting
These Oil Pastel Paintings are never really dried or  hardened.  If you have purchased one of mine, I encourage you to get it behind glass as soon as you can.  Especially if you have pets in the house.  If an animal hair gets on it, it will seemingly stick.  If you  need to remove the hair, the best way I have found is to use the corner of a piece of paper almost parallel to the painting.  Just try to get the corner to move the hair or to go under the hair slightly.  Once it pulls away from the painting, you can lift it up.  Using the paper corner is far preferable than trying to use your fingers or a tweezer--both will potentially dig into the painting and change it!  If you use patience and the corner of a piece of paper, I think you will have the best results.

Kudos to the 30 in 30ers
My congratulations to you all!  I am so proud of you and hope you are proud of yourselves.  Some of you faced other challenges in addition to painting 30 Paintings in 30 Days, such as trying to paint around a full-time job (like me), painting with health challenges, painting with heavy-duty family responsibilities, and other challenges I am failing to mention.  You deserve so much credit!

Blogger Question and Tip
I am posting this on Thursday morning around 9:30 am, so I am imagining those of you Watchers who are subscribed will receive the email of the post around 9:30 pm EST.  Up until now, I have been doing my posts the night before and scheduling them for 12:30 a.m.--that's why you have been receiving notifications around noon, EST.  The question is:  Why does Blogger wait about 12 hours to send out notifications of a post?  Blogger is able to handle everything else instantly, why the delay in the notification email?

And artist bloggers, here's a tip:  If you are not already subscribed to your own blog, you might want to consider signing up.  It's very enlightening to receive your own email notifications and see for yourself exactly when they are being delivered.

Thanks for Watching...I'm off to paint--well, I may clean for awhile first :-)