Mystery Woman - in pastel...

Lonnie, in pastel on paper, 11x14"

I painted this image without knowing the person -- she just came out of my head, so to speak. I wonder if someone out there looks like her. I decided to call her Lonnie because that's the name that popped into my head when I wondered what to name it. Wouldn't it be stange if there was a woman out there who looked like this named Lonnie?

Cypress Road and a lesson on pastel primer

Cypress Road, 2-1/2" x 3-1/2"

After several days on the couch recovering from yucky jaw surgery, I had a strong craving to paint something with colors, anything, but I had to be able to do it on the couch in the living room. So I got out the soft pastel pencils. Regular pastels (chalks) are so dusty and messy I can't use them in the living room. Pastel pencils had to suffice.

I did use workable fixative as I went along to add more texture to the surface, plus I started out by coating the illustration board with a thin layer of fine tooth Colourfix pastel primer (for the first time ever), which really did give it lots of tooth. In fact, it almost felt like Wallis sanded paper (sorry Mister Wallis, if you're out there, and your shareholders, but I'm on to something here).

Two "Golden Stairs" ladies

I discovered the artist Edward Burne-Jones on my first trip to the Getty a few years ago. Afterwards, at the Getty gift shop, I even bought the poster of his painting, "The Golden Stairs," showing eighteen golden-pearly-gowned ladies (angels?) descending a long staircase, each carrying a musical instrument. I think it's a sort of spiritual-religious painting, but without any icons to know for sure. This drawing shows two of the women who were near the top of the staircase, without their instruments, which I sketched with pastels.