No Jack - Demo

18x33 pastel on wallis paper

I started with this pastel painting and at this point decided I could benefit by doing a study piece to help me decide on final color.


5x7 on board, gridded and sketched. The board I picked up happened to be this ochrey tone. Probably beneficial - lending the whole image to be a little warmer than the pastel painting above.

This time I decided to paint the image before applying paper. I used acrylics because they dry fast. My reference for this image was from two different photos. The girl is my grandmother and her dog Jack - this was one photo. The house was a picture of her house growing up in Massena, NY.


Some paper has been added. I used my larger pastel version as a guide to help me visualize where I wanted the paper. So to a certain extent I'm using each piece to help me with the other.


I have added paint in such a way to work the pieces of paper in with the image already established.

Pastel was then used to carve out the image.
No Jack (study for My House Your Dog)
5x7 mixed media

I was really happy with the colors in this piece, so I decided to go with them to finish my larger pastel.

My House Your Dog
18x33 pastel on wallis paper

Hair Strings - Demo

Hair Strings
4x6 paper and pastel


I started with a sketch on pastel paper using a grid as a guide. Her hair is dark so I wanted a dark piece of paper to establish this. Which in the end I struggled with a little.

An old piece of wallpaper goes across her face. The other pieces are old paintings - two pieces are oil, one is watercolor and the lighter one is oil on a piece of linen.

The purple on her face is an old pastel piece and in the upper left corner is rice paper colored with watercolor. I am satisfied with the layout of the paper, so I decide to go in with the pastels at this time.

There is really is an image missing after this one. I thought I had finished and sprayed the painting with fixative, which darkened the entire image and made it muddy looking. So I guess in my frustration, I neglected to take pictures at this point. My upper most thought was I needed to brighten it up - thus, the final image as you see it below.

Final image