Ornamental Kale

Ornamental Kale     6" x 6"     Pastel      ©Sheila Ashley Liston
Available $75



This is the ornamental kale plant that I mentioned yesterday. It is such a beautiful cool weather addition to any garden.  I understand that the plants actually can be eaten, but they're really used for garnish or as a base for hors d'oeuvres. I'm sure that would be a lovely splash of color for any table. In my opinion, they're fine plants for painting, especially for a lesson in how to paint purples!

Here's the "ornamental cousins" ....kale and cabbage from yesterday.

See my blog for more information on how these were painted on UArt 500 sanded pastel paper.

 https://sheilaliston.blogspot.com/2017/11/a-rose-by-another-name.html

A Rose By Another Name

A Rose By Another Name       6" x  6"     Pastel        ©Sheila Ashley Liston
Available $75

This plant is grown in my area in the midst of all the beautiful warm colors of fall. It's always thrilling to me to see how our Creator chooses this color palette. While the earth is covered in orange, red, gold and yellow with touches of green, this beauty pops up in shades of purple.  What a delightful treat for the eyes, this is a fine example of the use of complementary color in nature. Although, I've never grown ornamental cabbage before, I hope to plant this next year in late summer and patiently wait for the color explosion!

This pastel painting on UArt 500, has its' rather rough beginning in black watercolor to determine the values.

It's next stage is not much prettier! Here I've added a dry ink product called Inktense blocks. It is put down as a dry stick of color, and the water added to spread the color. This is a new material for me and I do enjoy watching the water bring the color to life.

In this stage, I added hard pastels (Nupastels and Rembrandts) lightly on the sanded surface to begin to establish the colors.

  After adding more color with some soft pastels (Senniliers), I defined the light edges, as I knew that this would be hard to be accurate in the final stage.

At this point, I added more fushia colors and defined the outer leaves with greens. I was able to work closer to the edges to create lost and found edges that didn't look so stiff. My final thoughts were that the painting had become too dark. I lighten the and softened the outer edges to finish.

Have you had the experience of growing these? Let me know any tips that you've learned.

The Rocks of Pemaquid

The Rocks of Pemaquid   6" x 12"   Pastel   ©Sheila Ashley Liston
Available $145

Hurry! You still have time to make it!  Put it on your calendar for Sunday, November 26, 2017....Santa arrives briefly via helicopter at Pemaquid Point Lighthouse Park in Bristol, Maine.

This is a beautiful, well-maintained park that makes it well worth the time to visit for a day while taking in Maine's lighthouses. There's a wonderful museum that houses much information about the fishing and marine heritage of the area. In addition, I was thrilled to see some lovely art by local artists in an art museum on the grounds.

The weather was perfect that day, with a wonderful sea breeze that coaxed us into staying much longer than we had planned. The lighthouse makes a fabulous scene, but today I chose to focus on the unique rock formation. We'll definitely plan a day here on the next trip! 

  

Maine Estuary

Maine Estuary     6" x 12"    Pastel       ©Sheila Ashley Liston
Available $145

Sometimes the ordinary scene has so much to tell, that it becomes an extraordinary painting subject. I'm drawn to these areas of transition between the ocean and the rivers, that offers some protection to the inland from extreme weather events.

After drawing in an outline, I used black watercolor to establish the value pattern.

Here I began to use Inktense sticks to begin laying in the local color

This is the fun part where adding water to Inktense causes a burst of color and dripping.

After the sanded paper (UArt 500) has dried, I began to add pastel. First, I used hard pastels. I worked with lighter values in the backgound and used peach, lavender, and pale blue pastels to paint the overcast sky, and then to use the same to add the final details in the water areas.

At this point I used soft pastels to add final details along with some hard Nupastels to add the grasses and weeds in the foreground.

Marblehead Lighthouse

Marblehead Lighthouse   5" x 8"    Pastel
©Sheila Ashley Liston
Available $95   

We drove to Marblehead last week where I was fortunate enough to find a comfy rock to sit on to begin painting. Well, truth be known, I did pad it a bit with an old blanket. It helps to carry some extra gear to be ready for any painting experience. It was a perfectly lovely fall day with a warm gentle breeze. We like to visit Marblehead Lighthouse and then take the nearby ferry across to either Kelly's Island or Put In Bay, especially during the off season. We enjoy photographing and painting the beauty and stillness of these small islands.  

Marblehead Lighthouse is just a two hour drive for us located in Marblehead, Ohio. We are fortunate to be just under one hour to Lake Erie, that has several beautiful lighthouses along what we here in Ohio like to call the North Coast. We stopped on the way back to photograph the Lorain Harbor Light in Lorain, Ohio.  

Marblehead Lighthouse is the oldest continuously operating lighthouse on the Great Lakes. Built in 1821, the lighthouse guides vessels into the Sandusky Bay and through the treacherous passage that runs between the Ohio mainland and a cluster of offshore islands.

Twilight at Portland Head Lighthouse

Twilight at Portland Head   6" x 8.25"   Pastel    ©Sheila Ashley Liston
SOLD


Portland Head Lighthouse in Portland, Maine.

I decided to paint from the photograph below. The more I thought about it, I began to fantasize about how it might look as the evening sun sets and the twilight begins.  We weren't fortunate to actually see that happen, but I decided to create that vision in my mind and then transfer it to my new UArt dark pastel paper. Since the paper is almost black to begin with, it seemed like it would be a good start to a painting at that time of the evening.    

It's interesting to me that sometimes a song comes to mind while I'm working. This time it was the hymn, "Be Thou My Vision" 

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;

Naught be all else to me save that thou art.

Thou my best thought, by day and by night,

Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.

Cathedral Falls in June

Cathedral Falls in June   4" x 12"
Acrylic   ©Sheila Ashley Liston
Available Framed $120

The summer of 2016 was just beginning when Bill and I visited a few of our favorite spots in West Virginia. We always stop at this roadside park that has a most beautiful waterfall with easy access. We see this along Route 60 as we leave the Charleston area on Route 60 on the way to Hawks Nest State Park. At Hawk's Nest, we met a lovely group of ladies who were having a scrapbooking retreat. They were kind enough to let me visit with their creative group. Oh my, I do love art supplies of all kinds and creative people! Thank you, Margie Price and group, from South Charleston.

I was working on this painting about 2 weeks after our visit, only to learn that West Virginia had suffered one of the most devastating floods in their history, resulting in many deaths. For the first time that I could remember, it affected the area where I grew up in Clay County. The bridge to my childhood home was washed away as the water forced its way through the quiet little community of Dille. I am grateful for my family and friends who were safe, but not without damage to their properties.

As I painted these falls, I couldn't help but wonder at how water can be the very necessity for sustaining our lives, and yet be so devastating that it takes lives with it as it rushes back to the oceans.