Pastel paintings

I worked a little more on the painting I did a few days ago. I've realized that when you paint the skyholes (where you see the sky through the trees), it is a bit darker in value than the sky. I think I have improved it.

I've also learned that I have to take photos of my artwork outside. With my particular set up, this is the best way. The previous post, I had tried to take it inside because it was raining.

Here is a painting I have been working on for a while. I painted it from a photo that my daughter took. I keep going back to it to work on things I see. It's good to let a painting sit for a while. I see things I don't see at first. I think this is the final version. By the way, these paintings were done with my own hand made pastels. I think I am getting a good collection of colors.

Angora Bunnies for Sale

I have enjoyed my beautiful French Angora rabbits for years. I have shown them and won prizes with them. I now am offering babies for sale. They are $35 each and come with a pedigree. The bunnies in these three litters are not too closely related to breed together.

Here is a lovely litter of bunnies out of my champion buck, Leonardo. The mother is a golden steel. They were born Dec. 19th. There is a squirrel buck, a chocolate agouti buck, and a broken squirrel doe. She has a very nice pattern. I personally love the squirrel color.

This litter is the one that I posted about last month, the bunnies that almost died of the cold. They were born Dec. 19th, and they are beautiful now! This is a fawn buck, a cream doe, and a chestnut buck. Their father is a red, and their mother is a black. There is a red in the litter and an copper agouti that I am keeping for now. These bunnies could throw reds.

This litter has two does and five bucks. Born Dec. 4th, they are all a very good cream color, almost fawn. Their father is a good blue cream (tort) with very thick wool and their mother is white.

I've been dyeing, ( but not dying )

It takes quite a lot of time and effort to get my wool prepared to send off to be carded, but I finally got there. First there is all the washing and selecting and weighing, and then dyebath after dyebath of Shetland wool and angora. I like a 75% wool and 25% angora mix. I like to put similar colors together, such as turquiose and blue, and navy, blue and violet. When carded, this makes a depth of the color, in that it comes out almost iridescent and you are seeing the different colors and not just one flat color. Incidentally, this is the effect one strives for when painting in pastel. Instead of blending, adding one color over another makes for a much more interesting sparkling effect.

winter painting

With all the snow, I took the opportunity to take some photos to use for paintings. Nope, I just can't get out there and do plein air when it is this cold! ( It's been in the teens and 20s ).

Anyway, here is a pastel I did on a new surface- multi-media art board prepared with aluminum oxide grit. I think next time I will use the smoother side of the board; but this was an interesting experience. Also, all the pastels I used are my handmade ones.

Preparedness rating: mediocre

We have had colder than usual temperatures for our neck of the woods. This means taking hot water out twice a day for the animals. It also means burning lots of firewood as our propane heat would have to run a LOT to keep the house comfortable. So we needed to cut some more firewood. There is plenty of it out there, lots of dead trees. So, today having the troops home was a good day to do the job. However, the kerosene heater would not run well to heat up the tractor which didn't want to start in the cold. So, we had to use a handpulled wagon to transport the wood. But we got the idea that we could use our living horsepower to help with the job. Gitano just could not handle that scary wagon that he was expected to pull. So, the three of us together pulled the wagon. One thing I know I need now is some insulated boots. I did wrap some wool around my feet and that did help. We did get enough wood for a few days and got a lot of exercise.