JoeBurke

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At Christmas, 2008 my wife gave me a present of pastel lessons with an accomplished and awarded pastel artist, Shelly Eager (@ http://shellyeager.com/). I purchased some inexpensive pastels, attended class each Thursday evening and began painting, for about fourteen weeks before we stopped for the summer. These are the works that I've produced so far, in order, and I've never done this before (and will keep my day job!). I purposely chose very different scenes in each case to vary the challenges. These paintings show my (obvious) learning curve.

For me pastel painting carries both relaxation and tension. Relaxation because it is completely unlike anything else I do, so it removes me from the everyday, usual stuff and transports me to a completely different mode of eye-hand fun, using a different part of my brain; tension because I want to do a good job so I am always a critical of my work and impatient with my progress and understanding of my tools. But I enjoy the heck out of it! (click any photo for enlargement)

My #1 attempt, Feb-Mar, 2009 - "Beached" Rembrandt Soft Pastel on Colorfix Paper, 9x12"	#2, March, 2009 - "Alpine Valley" Rembrandt Pastel on colorfix paper, 12x9" I did this scene with hard, chalk, pastels. Thus it turned out much darker than I wanted, although I learned a great deal painting this pan-optic scene. Someday I will do redo this picture with good, soft pastel.	#3, April, 2009 - "Night Climb" Rembrandt Soft Pastel on colorfix paper, 9x12" Again, hard pastels made certain areas too dark.	#4, April, 2009 - "October Pond" Soft Pastels on colorfix paper, 12x18" Finally bought some soft pastels and it shows.
#5, May, 2009 - "Summer Seat" Soft Pastels on colorfix paper, 12x18"	#6, May-June, 2009 - "Pas de Deux" Soft Pastels on colorfix paper, 19x26"	#7, June-July, 2009 - "Geisha Dawn" Soft Pastels on colorfix paper, 13x19"	#8 - August, 2009, "Sunny Sleeping" Shape sketch, oil pastel on Canson paper, 9 x12" (Sunny is our white Toy Poodle) Oil pastel is very different from soft pastel, because it doesn't layer the same way, it just smears (you can see a bit of that in each oil pastel sketch), but I am figuring out ways to use that effect (see the sky in "Alpine Mist").
#9 - August, 2009, "Old Wicker Rocker" Sketch, oil pastel on Canson paper, 9x12"	#10 - August, 2009, "Summer Heat " Shape sketch, oil pastel on Canson paper, 9x12" Since the paper is black, I did not draw the bathing suit but let the paper do the work.	#11 - July-Aug, 2009, "Alpine Mist" Oil pastel on Canson paper, 14x18.5" My first full-blown oil pastel effort, I found that blending oils is very unlike soft pastel, and light colors will not easily lay on top of heavy blended areas.	#12 - Aug., 2009, "Venice Canal Dawn" Shape sketch, Oil pastel on Canson paper, 9x13" An exercise in perspective in a quick oil pastel sketch with only 8 colors available.
#13 - November, 2009, "Preparing" Soft Pastels on Artfix paper, 13x19", Adopted from a B&W photo of mine taken years ago. Painting figures/people is for me the most challenging work because unlike a tree/sky/lake, making a mistake on a person is always glaringly noticable. Also, the mirror behind the ballerina is my first attempt at painting glass.