Hibiscus, pastel: making the yearly Christmas card

Posted on December 23, 2021 by Anne deFuria

Technical stuff: I blocked out the drawing to be three times the size of a standard 5 x 7 greeting card so that when photographed to send to the printer, the resolution would be very high when the size was reduced from 15 x 21 to 5 x 7.

Choose paper color and go! The drawing of my hibiscus bloom, seen in the photograph attached to the easel, is blocked out with a white pastel pencil on green paper.

Starting my 2021 Christmas card

Over several weekly sessions in my teacher’s studio, I added layers of pastel. I don’t generally blend the colors with a tortillion or paper or my finger, not until I layer in the color for hours and hours. If I get stuck at the end, I spray workable fixative to give the paper more grip. Finally, I might touch up edges with a pastel pencil and tortillion.

Adding color to the drawing

When the pastel painting was finished, we photographed it, and added the greeting using Photoshop. I also adjusted the colors of the leaves a bit to push them back, to not compete with the flower. The big impact here is supposed to be that vivid Hibiscus bloom I had admired last summer on my deck.

The finished drawing for the Christmas card

I uploaded the finished image to Vistaprint to turn into my 2021 Christmas card. If you read the stories of my other greeting card misadventures, this year was a much smoother experience thanks to the technical and artistic guidance of my teacher. Thank you, thank you to her. And Merry Christmas to all!

More monotypes: Frog 1 and Frog 2

Posted on October 16, 2019 by Anne deFuria

Last week I made several monotype prints of a frog. I inked a glass plate, placed a piece of white drawing paper on the plate, and drew a frog on the paper, pressing hard with the pencil to transfer the image from the plate. The first print had so much paint, the frog was lost in the paint (bottom image.) so I pulled another print from that plate (the ‘ghost’) which was a bit faint. I then worked on the second print today with pastel pencils to bring the frog out of his surroundings. That’s the top image below.

Frog 2, monotype and pastel pencil

Reggie, Grand-dog

Posted on October 30, 2018 by Anne deFuria

A weekend visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art provided plenty of inspiration and awe, but it was a small portrait of a white dog by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec which gave me an idea about how to draw my grand-dog, Reggie. I used short, vertical strokes for the background and scribbly hatching for his fur, trying to use Lautrec’s technique to catch Reggie in a contemplative mood on the sofa. I finished the drawing in one class and trying not to overwork it, I left the grey paper showing through the marks. I feel that this was a good attempt at catching Reggie’s ‘dogginess,’ and I could use this technique for other quick works.

: Reggie, pastel on paper

: Dog, oil, Toulouse-Lautrec, Philadelphia Museum of Art

: Philadelphia Museum of Art

Salt Marshes, again, and again

Posted on October 23, 2018 by Anne deFuria

Last May while visiting Stone Harbor, I took an iPhone picture of the salt marshes along the causeway leading to Seven Mile Island, a barrier island along the southern end of the New Jersey shoreline. The marsh grasses were a spring green with some winter browns mixed in at that point.

View of Stone Harbor, NJ

Last summer, I took a charcoal drawing course and drew the scene of the salt marshes in black and white, with soft vine charcoal on watercolor paper:

Today, I revisited the scene in pastel: 12×18, Canson pastel paper:

This part of New Jersey is so beautiful. I enjoy revisiting it, in person, and in different art mediums. Next, sometime this winter, I will paint the scene in watercolor then oils. By then, it will be time to drive ‘down the shore’ again, as we supposedly say in New Jersey.

Still Life with Gourd…and problems

Posted on October 5, 2018 by Anne deFuria

What can you learn from a painting with problems? I knew the glass bottle I picked for my still life would be challenging with its transparency and reflections, but I decided to face the challenge with the help of my teacher. I did not anticipate that the folds of the black cloth and the elliptical shapes of the plate and bottle would also be tricky. I felt that the gourd would be forgiving – what’s a bump or curve here or there going to matter? You can draw a gourd that looks gourd-like even if it doesn’t look like that specific gourd in front of you and no one will be the wiser. But if you draw the perspective of a cylindrical bottle or round plate inaccurately, the drawing will look amateurish.

The photo collage shows (clockwise from bottom left) the still life in the studio, an early version of the drawing and a later version after two 2 1/2 hour classes and quite a lot of work at home. The drapery is toned down and blended, the black drape shows through the bottle and the sky is darkened. The whole drawing reminds me of some artists I like: Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley and Charles Burchfield, but I can’t claim that was intentional.

Still life in progress

I learned that I need a lot more practice with basic drawing. I learned that folds of drapery are really tricky and that’s why all those Renaissance painters went wild with their virtuoso renderings of draped figures. I learned that using black is worth a whole study of artists like Whistler and Manet. I realized I was right about the gourd. Gourds are forgiving. Just don’t put them on a reflective, white plate seen at a foreshortened angle. Oh, the ellipses!

Still life with gourd, pastel

Anne deFuria

Drawings, Paintings, Collage

Category Archives: pastels