Shadow

My friend, Sandy just had to have her little dog, Shadow, who was about fifteen put to sleep. She feels really bad and I can relate because I just lost my Argus two weeks ago. I hope she likes this pastel I did. What a sweet dog!

Step 11 - Finished Dubrovnik

Finished the foreground... added the arch on the right side. Finished! I'm fairly happy although if I were to do it again I'd make that tower off to the right a little more. I tried not to make it perfectly centered, even though it was in the photo, but I could have moved it more.

Step 10

After getting away for a while I noticed something was not right... so I added more color to the water. I like this better. But I did have some trouble because I already had that tower there - so I had to re-draw some of it.

Step 9

Step 8

Foreground started.

Step 7

Used some beiges for the tower.

Step 6

when I blended in the water I went across the little tower because I could still see my pencil lines and then it doesn't look like the water is in front of the tower. There's no 'halo' effect.

Step 5

Put in the first layer of water.

Step 4

Got the basic mountains and sky.

Step 3

Starting on the mountains. I'm using unison pastels again and Mattson paper. I love the way the pastels come in lots of really dark values.

Step 2

Working top to bottom as I usually do in pastels I added some color to the sky. Besides messiness, the other reason for doing this is I'm working background to foreground. It makes it easier to physically lay the pastels in front of the next section as it is in life.

Pastel of Dubrovnik, Croatia

My friend, Bob sent me some photos he took while in Croatia. They were beautiful photos and I wanted to continue my 'cities' series and do a pastel of one of them. So, I took photos along the way as I worked on it. This is step 1 - the pencil sketch.

Robb Telfer

So, I mention in my links my nephew, Dan named third funniest person in Chicago by Time Out Chicago magazine - here's an awesome article they wrote this week about my other nephew Robb. I'm so proud! http://www.timeout.com/chicago/articles/books/25540/robbie-q-telfer You can get the magazine at Borders nearly everywhere in the Chicago area.

By the way, this is a pastel I did of him last summer with Ram horns. He jokingly mentioned wanting a picture of himself with ram horns, not once, but twice, so what was I to do? All I can say is be careful what you ask for.

Argus

My dear, sweet, wonderful dog, Argus went to heaven on Tuesday. I miss him so much and will continue to miss him, but I know he's not suffering and I have to take comfort in that. I love you, Arg.

Nancy's Brooches

I heard from my college roommate, Nancy. She wanted me to make her a brooch similar to one on my website with these colors. I liked working in both the triangle shape and the rectangle so I made both and she can choose. I hope she likes them! Nancy is great - she looks like Mary Tyler Moore with blonde hair and plays and teaches the viola as she did in college.

iPod update

I just thought I would mention that my days of being pathetically iPod impaired are over! I now know how to turn it on, change songs, adjust the volume, charge it and turn it off... and I only had to call my daughter who's in Nashville this week 3 times for help!

It's hard to remember how I lived without it, actually. I have spent many hours in my studio so far this weekend - cleaning, working, and planning for my Monday morning class, etc. But I must say who can sit still while listening to "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls - or - "She's My Man" by the Scissor Sisters!

Happy New Year!

Keep taking care of yourself and all of the animals you encounter this year. Not assuming anyone wouldn't - but remember that they can't speak for themselves so we have to speak for them. HAPPY NEW YEAR and thanks for reading my blog. Oh yeah, go to my website too! www.telfleur.com