Dusk at Devil's Den

I'm very pleased to announce that my watercolor and colored pencil landscape, Dusk at Devil's Den, was accepted into the CPSA (Colored Pencil Society of America)'s Explore This! 9 online exhibition. With this acceptance I earned my CPX Signature Status, and just received my certificate and pin in today's mail. You can view the exhibition at http://www.cpsa.org/view-explore-this-9.

Completed and Sold!

I did complete Sunset, Peter Frey Farm in late June, and it and another small landscape sold in early July to a gentleman from Pittsburgh.  I enjoy these Gettysburg landscapes and am now experimenting with using Neocolor II (Watersoluble Wax Pastels) on some larger versions, as they lay down much more quickly than the Inktense pencil/colored pencil combination.

Lots of catching up to do

I've had almost no time for posting recently, since we're into the heart of the tourist season in Gettysburg. So this week, now that we're past the big annual reenactment, I plan to post a lot of things I've been working on in the intervening weeks. These are the last three plein air pieces I created during the Plein Air Paint Out, part of this year's Gettysburg Festival -- Pennsylvania Monument; Barn, Henry Culp Farm; and Gettysburg Railroad Depot. The railroad depot piece, the largest of these three, I completed within the timed, 2- hour Quick Draw event held within a one-block radius of Lincoln Square in Gettysburg. About 20 minutes into this painting, I'd realized I'd bitten off a little more than I could chew, because the detailing on this building is absolutely incredible. But I just kept plugging away, and much to my surprise, did actually manage to finish it within the 2-hour timeframe. All three pieces are done in watercolor and ink.

To see more of my plein air and other Civil War-themed work, please visit www.CivilWarFineArt.com.

Dusk at Devil's Den

I believe this is done -- added some detail but I didn't want to overstate it. So I'll post it for now and spend some time looking at it in this new form to see if I feel it truly is finished.

Devil's Den at Sunset, Step 2

I taught a workshop over the weekend on using Derwent Inktense water soluble pencils as an underpainting for colored pencil drawings. Since I had this piece with me to use as an example of a couple of concepts, I spent a little time during the lunchbreak punching up the watercolor layers and then last night had some time to add some dry colored pencil detail. It's starting to head the direction I want; it does seem to look a little too dark, overall, in this reproduction.

Artistic Struggles

Devil's Den at Sunset, step 1



As I'm sure so many of my artist-friends can relate to, lately I've really been struggling with making progress on any of my various projects. I have a number of commissions on which I'm making progress, but I've found that it's also very important to me to have my own personal project "in the works", something I'm very emotionally connected to, to keep my spirit alive. That is not to say I don't have any emotional connection or sincere interest in my commission work, it's just to say that the feeling is not quite the same as when I'm doing something of my own choosing. I'm emotionally connected to the Basil Biggs project but am finding some of my references to be lacking; I'm emotionally connected to my third -- and probably final -- piece involving Sarah Emma Edmonds but I'm finding it difficult to determine a direction for that piece. Recently, however, I've hit on some ideas and now have a vague notion regarding the composition of that piece, so I'm hopeful that I'll be posting a rough layout of it soon.

In the meantime, in addition to teaching a number of classes and workshops in OH, I've also been studying the pastel landscape work of Richard McKinley, and am trying to work with his "underpainting" concept for some small landscapes I'm doing of the Gettysburg battlefield. The image above represents my watercolor pencil underpainting with a minimum of colored pencil applied on top. But again, I appear to be "stuck" when it comes to moving forward with this composition.

I know this is just a natural part of the artistic process, but I have to say it's very uncomfortable and i'll be pleased when things start to smooth out a bit.