Jumping Off the High Dive Again

“Monhegan Beach”      12” x 16”      Pastel      $200      © Sharon LewisClick Here to Purchase 

            I had originally decided not to take the 3-day Liz Haywood-Sullivan workshop this May because even though I really admire her work (see http://www.haywood-sullivan.com/pastel/index.html), the only session I could take would mean that I really wouldn’t have a day off for weeks. Given the stress and lack of sleep caused by end-of-the-semester grading I thought that I could use a break. Fortunately I changed my mind because not surprisingly, I learned a lot from the workshop.

            The workshop focused on painting skies, clouds, and water, which I really enjoy but what was probably most helpful to me was how Liz emphasizes the great importance of basic drawing skills and gave us some useful tips for how not to lose the compositional design that I liked in my reference photo even when I transferred that design to a much larger canvas.

            So, what does this have to do with jumping off the high dive? Well, it’s because a typical workshop starts out with a well-known, very good artist, demonstrating how she/he paints which usually wows us all. Then this very talented person turns to us and says, “Now it’s your turn.” This is the part that makes most of us feel like someone has just said jump off this really scary, really high dive. We all set up at our easels and must then very publicly demonstrate our own skills…or lack thereof. It’s not supposed to be a competition but everyone’s different levels of skills and experience very quickly become apparent. It’s a little scary to me and I often wonder why I keep doing this to myself. I think the answer is that I know that if I truly want to be a better artist I have to have these learning experiences which means risking looking like an idiot jumping off that high dive but always with the faith that you will not really drown and maybe just maybe, you will make a beautiful, truly amazing splash.  

            Have a good week!

Simple Beauty

“Simple Beauty”     5” x 7”     Pastel     $50     © Sharon Lewis
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            There are times, maybe not often, that I really like a simple, peaceful sky. With all of the recent storms, combined with the stress of the semester ending, a calm, peaceful sky looks very appealing and somehow restful right now.

            This painting is based on a photo that really looks nothing like this scene. The painting came out of a challenge in class to do a quick study (15 min. I believe is all that we had) of a simple, graded sky with no clouds. Since I love doing clouds, this was a bit of a challenge for me. What I realized after completing most of the painting is that the land had to be far more interesting than in the photo so I added spring colors and I cheated a bit and put a few streaky clouds low in the sky.

            Hope your skies are peaceful. Happy Weekend!

Into the Distance

"Into the Distance"       8” x 10”    Pastel      $75    © Sharon Lewis
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            It was a beautiful, sunny and breezy, spring day in Palm Coast, Florida, a city on the east coast, south of Jacksonville. We had gone for a long walk on the beach and seen some really funny looking birds that looked like they had bad mullet hair cuts (are there good mullets?). I looked them up in my bird book and discovered they were not gulls as I originally thought but sandwich terns. There were also some really cute smaller birds with skinny legs that I think are snowy plovers. That day I was also lucky to catch a beautiful setting sun behind me reflecting on the clouds in front of me. This painting shows the reflected light on the clouds and the flight of two terns with bad hair cuts heading into the distance.

            Happy Weekend!

Changing Reality: Along the Water’s Edge

“Along the Water’s Edge“        5” x 7”     Pastel       $50       © Sharon Lewis
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            Today’s painting is a slightly different version of a scene I have painted before, on a very different surface.  The painting is based on a photo I took from a moving car…. not usually the best photo to use as a reference. However sometimes, it forces you to use more of your creative skills because you have no choice. In this case, I was working from a pretty boring, blurry photo of an almost all green scene. So, I added orange, pink, and blues to the painting to spice it up a bit.

            When you take photos under these circumstances, you also don’t have time to compose it attractively either, so once again, I needed to think creatively how I might re-design this scene to be a little more interesting.  The first time I painted this scene I did a close-up of the trees. In this one I decided to add a path leading you to the trees and water. I want the viewer to maybe imagine having a picnic along the water’s edge in the shade of one of these trees. 

              

            Enjoy and Happy Weekend!

Looking Up

“Looking Up”     9” x 12”    Pastel     $100      © Sharon Lewis
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             Ever since I was a little kid I have looked up into the sky, fascinated by the clouds and how they changed. It’s like having your own natural gallery of art. Maybe it was due to some early esthetic sense… some precocious love of beauty…possibly. Or maybe it was because as a little kid, I kept getting slammed flat on my back, with the breath knocked out of me by the boys in my neighborhood. You’d be amazed how beautiful the sky can look to you when you finally get air back into your lungs again. Let me add that these boys were not bullies in any way. No, this was the result of me insisting that they let me play “touch” football with them. As the only girl and the runt in this bunch of kids, I was just an easy tackle…that is when they could catch me. 

            This summer I was so fortunate to see many breathtaking skies in the UK. This painting is what I saw one day when I looked up over the water into the skies of Scotland.