Surprise Sketches

 The Patchogue Sketch Club met at the library this week to do some sketches...but our subjects were a surprise. Each sketcher put an item/items into a brown bag with materials to sketch with. You were only supposed to use the materials that were in the bag. 

The first bag I picked had a wooden statue of a bird. Inside the bag were assorted pens and a marker all in the brown family. Only one was water-soluble and it turned pink when you added water. It was a challenge to get the bird to look brown. Many layers later this was what I was able to achieve.

The second bag I selected contained a large yellow onion, a small round rock and a clam shell. But the sketching materials were a red, blue and green oil pastel...no yellow! I couldn't get the onion to look like an onion, but I gave it my best shot.

Woods View

This morning I sat out on the patio and did a sketch of the woods with oil pastels. After I used them the last time I watched a few videos to see how people recommend using them. I've mostly used them in watercolor paintings sort of like a resist and texture. This time I used just the oil pastels on Strathmore Toned Paper.

Sunflowers 3

This is the last of the sunflower paintings I did from the batch I bought the other day. I put them in a different pitcher that I thought might support the heads of the flowers better, but it seems to be a hopeless case. They weren't bad for this painting, but right now they look like all the petals will fall off if I even breathe near them. lol This was done with a media that I am not familiar with using. Although I've had this box of oil pastels for quite a long time, I really don't know how to use them. Mostly I use them as a kind of resist in a watercolor painting. But this is just oil pastels...

different for me.