C e c y T u r n e r
F i n e A r t

Beginnings and Endings

I want to share with you my Pastel Journey I've been taking, because I've been working hard at it. But first, a couple of shows going on which you might want to check out online if you won't be in the area where they are taking place. Then, please read about my Beginnings and Endings below that!

"Out on a Limb" is one of the two paintings that were accepted in The Mountain Oyster Club Fifty-Fifth Annual Contemporary Western Art Show and Sale, hanging through Januaty 31, 2025, at the Mountain Oyster Club in Tucson, AZ. (See Events) You may view the entire show on their website.

"Reaching Beyond" was accepted into its second big show, National Oil and Acrylic Painters Society (NOAPS) "Best of America" International Show at Beverly McNeil Gallery in Birmingham, AL, through November 9th. You may see the entire show on the gallery website (see Events) or www.noaps.org

Now for my new adventure in PASTELS

Most of you may know that I work mostly in oils and watercolors.

I have dabbled in pastels all along, and some of you may own the few pastel landscapes I've done.

I bought my first small set of pastels in college, and through the years I've added to it and used pastels primarily for a figure drawing class I attended for a while, adding mainly skin colors to them, which didn't help for landscape painting. So, I made a firm commitment to delve further into pastels this past summer, and I bought a landscape set (pricey, but it helped a lot to have more landscape colors) and a neat paintbox to replace the one I made (and it fell apart) to hold my pastels, even on location.

I've always LOVED the look of pastels and have read about how various pastel artists begin their paintings. You have to start somewhere!

Below are the two ways to start them that I've found, for me, work best:

This first one is using a watercolor underpainting to tone the pastel paper. It looks a little less scary than the two others I'll show you.

"Good Night, Estes" finished plein air pastel. You might notice that the underpainting didn't add a lot to help with the finished piece.

Here I've used hard pastels as an underpainting which I will paint over with the pricey soft pastels. I put them on then liquified them with plain old rubbing alcohol and a brush. Because the background was going to be dark and the flowers and tree light, I used a dark blue/purple and an orange. For the grass, I used a pinkish red, which will cut some of the green if I let it show through, since it's green's compliment.

Here you can see how that kind of works. If you look closely, you'll see how some of the pink of the ground and the blue of the background peek through a little.

This is another hard pastel and alcohol and hard pastel underpainting to start with. I used a dark for the dark trees, pink for the blue sky, yellow for the clouds, etc. Looks pretty bad here! Since the ones I'm showing you were plein air, you can imagine what people must have thought when they saw me painting.

Here is step 2 where I begin adding some more "normal" colors in soft pastels over the hard pastel underpainting. Starting to look a little better.

I add some yellow ochre type color to the clouds to warm them up a little and some of my original yellow shows through, also.

"Summer Skies" sold at Mary Williams Gallery in Boulder, CO, the day after I brought it in! It made me feel good to get a little validation there for my efforts. I forgot to mention that pastels are addictive. I certainly haven't or won't stop painting in oils or watercolors (a new watercolor shown below), but adding pastels to the mix is challenging and fun, they are perfect for outdoors (unless it rains, I guess) and I'll keep doing them, knowing that I'll learn from them things that I can apply to the other two mediums!

"Where the Action Is" 11x15 Newest Watercolor Painting Pure Fun!

Save the Date!

My annual Open Studio will be Saturday, November 23rd

3-7 p.m. at 7824 Glenneagle Drive, Dallas, TX 75248

Join me to have refreshments and to view my work!

Email me if you would like to receive a hard copy postcard with all details.

Thank you for reading my newsletter and thank you to the non-artists for reading about painting pastels!

My next newsletter will feature the colors of clouds.

Warm regards,

Cecy

If you're an artist and would like to paint endless windows like this one, doorways, flower-covered balconies, street scenes, parks, ancient ruins, and the list goes on, join me for my workshop in France next summer! You can even paint the castle we'll stay in. Only a few spots left, and one of the premium rooms in the castle has just become available. Click here for more information!