Bud Leake's Barn II

 Experimenting with soft pastels on a black surface. A local framer("Fast Frames", very nice people) donated some centercuts of matboards that they were going to recycle to my school. I wanted to see how they would be to draw on before I gave them to my students and I really like the results. They are smooth with just enough tooth to work with soft pastel. Not as good with hard pastels. This surface is a very thick black core black matboard. 8x10in pastel    SOLD   

Severn WIllow

  My mother tells me that my father proposed to her by this willow tree in 1950. She tells me every time we pass it, one of the reasons I was really keen on painting it.When I am lucky enough to visit  her home on the Severn River I try to wake at dawn to catch to morning sun. The painter Michael Barre says that willow trees are some of the hardest trees to paint. That's probably because they are so wispy and difficult for the paintbrush to pull off. I was hesitant to attempt this myself until I started fooling around with these very soft pastels.  By gently rubbing the side over a rough surface (black mat board, in this case) I found the textures made really seem to create the illusion of the feathery nature of the willow. 8x10in. terry ludwig pastels