Playing with Pastels, a Jar of Pushpins

I also bought some new pastels today, both chalk and oil. I decided I wanted to play with a still life to try them. I happened to have a baby food jar filled with pushpins handy so I drew it. The real jar had a lot more pushpins but I got tired of drawing them so I stopped here. I used the chalk pastels to color it. Not exactly an inspiring drawing, but it was a fun exercise and I enjoyed working with the mediums.

A tree, saved from the circular file

I bought some new art supplies today and I was playing around with them. One of the drawing kids I bought had a charcoal stick so I just started trying to freehand sketch a tree. I finished it out with a rough idea of a lake, some bushes, another tree, etc. Then I pulled out my new watercolors and painted the tree. I thought it came out pretty good!! Then I tried to paint the lake and I messed up. I couldn't figure out how to capture the feel of water, and I was painting on drawing paper so the more I tried to work with the paint the more the paper fibers lifted and balled across the page so finally I gave up.

But I loved that tree. I thought it came out pretty good. It made me feel like I had accomplished something, like I had been artistic and actually good at it for a moment.

So I cut it out. I couldn't throw it away with the rest of the screwed up picture, I decided to save it and glue it into another project later. So here it is, scanned for you to see. The blue along the sides is leak over from the lake I was trying to paint, but that's okay. I don't need perfect. I like my tree.

Trixie, my old cat, in Chinese Watercolor

EDM Draw Something Sticky

EDM Draw a Screw

Gold Star Dreams

Edited to add that they appreciate me all the time where I work now, so this one is kind of obsolete now.

On the Darkest Days