6″ x 4″, pastel pencil

4″ x 6″, gel pens *SOLD*

Since oil pastel is my newly found favorite medium (going back to it after an almost 6 year break), the title of Tanya’s blog caught my attention. She works primarily in oil pastel, but her acrylic and colored pencil works are just as delightful.

Tanya’s Charming Critters – oil pastel paintings

Patricia the rat drinking baileys on a quiet night out
Coloured pencil on black card, 2.5 x 3.5 inches (ACEO)

It was Cherri’s and Brian’s idea to gather KALEID artists, their friend and families together and help everyone put names to faces. That really worked out great while I was there, but now I look back and realize that in many cases all I remember is faces. Oh well, hopefully all I will need next time I walk by someone’s display there is to see the name and my memory supply the face.

It was so much nicer to walk around without hurry and take time to see who is doing what. When I come to make changes to my display there is never enough time for that.

The best part of the party was the gift exchange between artists. Every artist was asked to bring a wrapped artwork made for the occasion, and everyone got a tag with a number as they arrive and put their gifts under the Christmas tree. Then Cherri called the numbers one by one, and artists came to the tree and picked whatever they wanted. Note to self: come earlier next year. There will be more choices.

This was my gift, and it was picked by a horse person, Jessica Beerli:

Way cool. I had my doubts about making another horse – after all, not everyone would appreciate a gift like that. But since I was not in the mood for anything else, a horse it was. We had a nice chat with Jessica about almost everything after the gift exchange. I really like her portraits that she now has in the gallery.

And this is the gift I got:

Linda Ritter of Visual Confections made these pretty little ornaments. I should have the Christmas tree up tomorrow, and all three of them go right on it!

Stunning Work of Kate D. MacDowell

Communicable, 20“x15 ½ “x5 ½ “, hand built porcelain, cone 6 glaze, 7/2008

Kate’s skills are exquisite, but it’s not the skills that made me stop and look in the middle of a busy day. It’s what the artist is saying with her unsettling but beautiful porcelains, or rather what she makes me see in them – a beautiful, ever renewing world around us, enduring and fragile at the same time.

Graphite Pencil Drawing Tutorial: Female Eye

A step by step with large images. Yes, it’s photo realism that I am not crazy about, but there is something about that gaze that makes me want to take another look and then yet another one. I wonder: if the whole face was there, would the effect be lost?