Online Learning

In January I decided to try an online art course. The course I chose was "Creating Small Abstract Paintings" given by abstract pastelist Debora Stewart. See Debora's work at http://www.deboralstewart.com/

Step one was to select several landscape photos and make black and white thumbnails sketches. 

Step two was to create black and white drawings from the thumbnail drawings.

1

2

3

4

The last step was to create small pastel paintings from the drawings.

1

2

3a

 3b

This was a fun exercise and I found I really enjoyed working on the black and white drawings. I think I will try to make it a regular part of the painting process. I like what happened in the drawing from photo one. I cropped out most of the photo. I liked the idea of two completely different textures in one painting. I'm not sure how well it translated to the color painting. The photo for image 2 was almost abstract so it wasn't difficult to make an abstract painting. The thumbnails from photo 4 were the most challenging. I cropped the photo and made several thumbnails. For the drawing I turned it on its side and I think it is the strongest abstract drawing. I haven't tried to translate it into color yet but will post it as soon as I complete one. 

This was a fun way to jumpstart a year of painting and push my technical skills by making the black and white drawing before starting a color pastel. I appreciated Debora's thoughtful comments and suggestions. I think it was time well spent.