Dragon Fruit

Well, my lovely readers. I completed my first piece with pastels. It was just a "learn as I go" piece, so nothing terribly special or fancy, but I'm still pleased with the results--except for the background, which I hate. A week ago (well, half a week ago maybe) I decided I wanted to get into pastels. Mainly because I really miss painting. Alas, as of yet I still don't have a suitable space to set up my easel and painting supplies. Particularly a place that would not quickly become a certain fuzzy cat's new favorite local. I'm thinking cat hair isn't the proper way to build up a surface. ;) Painting "plein air" (outside, on location) would be ideal, but so far the weather hasn't been terribly ideal. Either it's raining or it's so freaking humid *I* would melt, no mention to the painting process.

I have always enjoyed and appreciated pastel pieces, granted some more than others. Though, I do reject the trend of calling pastel pieces "paintings" but that's probably just because I'm a snob about such things. So, I went out and got a very cheap set of soft pastels--24 basic tones and 12 earth tones. I soon discovered I should have bought the 12 gray tones as well, but now I'll wait on that. If I get into this hard core, I'm going to want nicer pastels to work with anyway. (At which point I'll also want to get a set of pastel pencils.)

As soon as I had the basic supplies, I dove in. A few mark experiments on a test page, a little fooling around with blending and layering, and I started the piece now posted above. It was fun. I kept a little photo-and-note record of the progress, from the sketch stage to each leaf. I do think I should have gotten pastel paper, or at least something with more tooth, but that'll be the next stage. I have four sheets of watercolor paper, which has a lot of texture to it. Learn the materials, find a basic method, then start to work with the paper. I'm excited though! And I even have a series brewing in my mind.

Tri-Purple

Another from my week away. You probably can't tell, but I actually toned down the green quite a bit for this one, so the purple of the flowers would pop more. The grass was *so* green.

Sway

Maybe you remember the old barn from our cottage? Well, I took a ton of photos of it when I was up there a few weeks ago. From just about every angle I could think of. There was a wonderfully atmospheric dark, brewing sky (it rained pretty much every day we were there), so I took a lot of shots with the intention of turning them black and white. Oh, I so miss the Hasselblad and its rich black and white radiant capture capabilities. But these turned out pretty well, I thought. I would have liked more contrast, like I got out of We Who Enter Here. But, the gloomy darkness of the above shot really works for me.


This one was wonderfully vibrant in color, but that didn't translate very well into b/w. I pushed the color levels on it, though, especially the yellow and orange, and now I'm fairly happy with it. There aren't any real highlights in it, though, which is why it feels much flatter. And you know, when I was taking it, I thought I wouldn't like the tire tracks leading into the field. But it works out all right; gives it a little extra depth and curve into the frame.

Deep as an ocean

I was out of town last week. I was going to post a "I'll be gone" post, but blogger was down every time I went to do so. Oh well. I do have a ton of images to go through now! (No, really, I have hundreds of photos to catch up on, like the ones of Toler I did two weeks ago as well as a few older shoots, plus now the ones I took last week. It'll be all sorts of fun and new. XD

Son of Icarus

I did a photoshoot with Toler the other day. =) Got him all cleaned up and took him to one of the resting paddocks to turn loose. He was so excited about the long grass (all to himself), he wasn't sure if he wanted to prance around or eat. So, he chose a combination of both. (See the chunk of grass in his mouth? Haha.)

I didn't do a terribly good job picking the time of day and weather, though. The sky was all over the place, lighting between really dark and rainy-like and too much direct sunlight. And, because I was out there on my own (meaning I had to both direct the horse via lunge-whip and man my camera), I knew I wasn't going to be able to cater to the lighting for every shot. Welcome Sensitivity Priority Mode.

So, I have a ton of shots. Of course, because they are all of Toler, I like every single one of them. Even if they're ridiculous or photographically awful. This one, however, is currently one of my favorites. It's the only one I've had time to work on yet, and I gave it a bit of extra attention for an added punch. I wanted a near-HDR look with it, with lots of radiance, contrast, lights, darks, and most importantly, I wanted to keep the sky. I ended up giving it a warmer temp treatment and then splicing two versions of it together in GIMP (a photoshop-like program). I used a brighter version for Toler and the grass, and added in the sky from a darker version, and smoothed it together. All of that work makes me really miss the dark room and custom-made dodging and burning tools. Sooooo much simpler. XD

Art of Braiding

Lately I've been braiding Toler before I ride, mostly for practice as I haven't done it in years, but also because I thought it would be a good way to strengthen my hands. That, and braiding is tooted as massage-like for horses, which I would tend to believe, depending on the braiding being done.

I finally found a method that's easiest (to do and on my hands), and even stays in better while riding. So, I took my camera yesterday and took some pictures. This one was taken after our ride, and you can see it's a little looser, but still hanging in well. I had to do some photoshop here, adding a duplicate layer in watercolor effect than blending it in with the original photo to add a little richness to the details, and a bit of extra weight to the blacks. I just thought the wrap-around composition was cute for showing off a braid.

I'm doing a little blog-meshing today, so if you want to see more braided-horse photos, check out Not Quite Hercules. I'm on my way to post them right...now.

Genre Frontiers

For the past few months I've had a character and plot brewing in my mind for a science-fiction novel, a genre I've never written in (a genre I don't read a whole lot in, either, at least not yet). It's definitely going to be a rather dark novel with a villain type as the main character. I'm actually rather excited about the character, and I do have quite a bit formulated in my mind.

I'm just having a much harder time than usual bringing anything out to the page. So far I've only been able to write sketch-scenes (more like exercises and such). Usually I don't have that sort of problem. The first sentence is the hardest, but as soon as that's down the rest just comes as it wants. That's usually my way of things--my stories and characters really write themselves. I very rarely have any inclination to outline or do exercises or take notes--with the exception of the saga I've been working on for several years, but that's only to keep things straight, especially as the characters and basics have been through some rather extreme changes.

So now I'm trying to figure out if I'm having trouble starting with this because it's a different type of story than usual, or if that's just the character's style. He is rather nefarious, so, I wouldn't put it past him, but still. It probably doesn't help that I generally prefer to write one thing at a time, and I'm still working on the re-haul of the first part of the saga. So, there's my ramble for the month. XD