Pastel Sky

I’m taking a pastel sunset class at the Digital Art Academy.  It was started by Karen Bonaker, who has an incredible knowledge of Painter.  Not only that, but she makes the most wonderful brushes for each class.

I totally don’t know what I’m doing drawing these landscapes.  I’ve never really done landscapes before.  I’m an abstract artist.  Before that, I did textiles.  Last month I took a landscape class at the DAA given by Aaron Rutten, who is an incredible teacher.  Aaron, has 180 videos on You Tube.  Most of them about Painter.

So, it was with trepidation that I entered the pastel sunset class.

This is my first attempt at a sunset.  I posted it in class, and got positive comments.  So I thought, what the heck, I’ll post it on my Twitter account.  OMG, it got a bunch of retweets and favorites.  I think more than any of my other paintings.

But, I have to say that this pastel bugged me  a bit.  I couldn’t put my finger on what it was.

That is where my good friend, Eva Macie came in.  Eva is a wonderful artist.  She supported herself and her children with her art.  Truly an artists dream to be self-supporting with their art.  Eva paints digitally as well as with acrylics and just about anything else.  She is a multi-faceted and multi-media artist.  Check out her blog here.  She just posted a pastel of an orange that is fabulous.

You can also see Eva’s art at Fine Art America.  Eva has exquisite taste in art and is always seeking to learn more about digital art.  Check her out at You Tube to see the great videos she watches.  I wish she’d start doing her own videos.

Eva told me she liked my first pastel.  But she too had a problem with it.  She took my pastel and turned the trees into bushes.  She pointed out that the trees I had placed were all the same size (how could I have done that?) and that they acted as a curtain.  Yes, that was it, that’s what was bugging me about this piece.  So, here is Eva’s redo of my picture.

I feel very lucky to have an artist like Eva to give me advice.  I like Eva because she calls it as she sees it.  She could have told me how wonderful this piece was.  But instead, I learned a very valuable lesson from her.