Finished Artwork

I have a few finished pieces that I haven't shown. The baking pic finally was done a few months ago after a lot of feet dragging.

What held me up for a long while was wondering what to put outside the windows. I knew I didn't want the blinds and the original view of my neighborhood outside. I finally came across a nice reference picture of a morning sky over a golden field. I got going again and finished it rather quickly after that.

Another piece is "In Dreams". I spent a lot of time putting stars in this background. I tried a few different kinds of white gel pens, and a white fine tipped marker but what ended up being the best star maker was my sakura electric eraser. A few quick touches of the eraser tip easily lifted off the colored pencil right down to the white board.

I finished off two more pastel pieces, the rose and one that has been in work for years, my Backe boys picture.

For the rose picture I re-purposed a sanded board I used in a workshop years ago. It was one of the first pastel workshops I ever took. I learned a lot and had a lot of fun, though my none of my workshop pieces ever inspired me to finish them.

I took my try below of a tree lined path, brushed off some of the pastel and brushed the remaining with alcohol to create an interesting underpainting. Then I painted a rose on it.

And this is what I got.

I like how the reddish tones from the previous painting show through here and there. A lot of these sanded boards are pretty sturdy and can hold up to brushing off the pastel and even washing it off.

The Backe boys picture is one that I started many moons ago. Looking at my reference and progress photos, I seem to have gotten the idea for it sometime late in 2011. I composited different reference elements of the concept in photoshop and then left if there. The next burst of activity is in March of 2014 when I completed the drawing and transferred it to a multimedia art board. I came back to it a few more times in 2014 and drew in some of the figures. That must have been very taxing because I didn't return to work on it again until 2016.

I did a substantial amount of work on it at this point but somehow managed to lose interest again, because it didn't get finished until late last year. What a journey! I think the problem has been my lack of confidence using pastels. It's only in recent years that I have begun to feel more control in this medium.