Art Class Paintings

Yesterday, I went through some of my art books looking for a project to paint with my Ladies - something that would work for watercolor or oil or acrylic. I did a drawing of the painting on watercolor paper, but then thought that I would do a quick pastel in order to put down color and show how the painting could look in the real. After doing a review of color theory with my students,  I handed out prints of the painting/print I had chosen. Most decided to do an acrylic while a couple of us chose watercolor. My pastel painting was much brighter than the print - probably due to my printer, but maybe because the artist chose duller colors.  What I saw in the painting/print was the really great light, which works well in watercolor or really in any painting. I wanted the students to see the value differences and the warm vs. cool in the painting.  The students were a bit whiny - they struggled with the color - choosing dark dull colors like the print. It took some time to get them to lighten up - literally.  But when it was all said and done, I thought they had a good start on a nice painting.

My pastel was sitting out on the art table when Toby got home. He really liked it and said so. He said it reminded him of Ecuador. Funny what people like! That was the good news - it did turn out better than my recent pastels. The bad news - it is a copy of someone else's work and not really sell-able. Here is the pastel I did.
Here is another pastel I worked on this week. Critiques are welcome.