New Magnets

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Four new works have been added to the magnet collection and many have been restocked.  

The new magnets are:
Born and Bred
I'll Be Home For Christmas
In His Hands
Christmas Time in the City


On the Drawing Board: Building a forest with pastels

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In art it's usually easier to create a forest than it is a tree.  For the tree covered hills in the background I first filled in the area with a dark forest green, and rubbed it in with my finger to fill in all the fiber of the paper.  Next I used a brighter green to shape out the trees.  I only used my finger to drag the edge of the brighter green into the dark, but kept the hard top edge so the trees had form, otherwise it's just a blurry green mass.  A couple even lighter greens were used to add secondary highlights to the tips and a drab brownish-green was used for showing leafy branch clusters in the shadowed areas. 

If I had thought of it, I would have taken pics of the steps I used and posted them as well. 

On the Drawing Board: taking it easy

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Usually I am a one work at a time kinda guy.  I try not to plan too far ahead, because I've discovered that if I sketch out an idea, and I can't start painting it right away I lose interests, especially if I do a painting or two in between.  However, when life gives you lemons (in the form of the flu) you gotta make lemonade (or hot tea with lemon).   Since I haven't been up to working with dusty pastels, I've worked on multiple outlines instead.  

Here are snippets of two.  Will both become full fledged paintings...time will tell.