Nancy Freeman Studio
  • Home
    • About the Artist
    • Contact
  • Blog
  • PROJECTS
    • Cabbage Aliens & Whimsies
    • Cabbage Invitational >
      • The FINAL CABBAGES
      • CABBAGE SCARVES
      • ABOUT THE CABBAGE INVITATIONAL
      • CABBAGE COMPETITION WINNERS
    • Hill Center Solo Exhibition
    • Hill Digital Quilt
  • DIGITAL WORKS
    • Copper Dreams
    • Beadazzled
    • Painted Pot Dreams
    • Red Feathers and Wings: Maples
    • Paintography
    • Photography
  • Traditional Media
    • About Studio, Media
    • Landscapes
    • Flora and Still Lifes
    • Portrait Commissions
    • Speed painting
    • Pastel - Step-by-Step Demos >
      • "Inner Space" Demo
      • "Fallen Bouquet" Demo
      • "Winter Ruffles" Demo
  • Collections
    • EARTH ALIENS
    • Cool Things
    • Round Things

The Yellows are Finished!

12/29/2013

0 Comments

 
The Yellows!
Picture
Too many yellows!!
The yellows are finished, finally. Whew, what a process!

Yellows are always problematic because at full saturation it is at a value nine, very high, and has nowhere to go in the value scale when white is added. Very top heavy. Messes up all the color charts.
Picture
Picture
The Yellows!
0 Comments

Cabbage of the Day

12/27/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
Two new Cabbage Cortex images.
Picture
0 Comments

My Favorites ... the Blues

12/18/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
YellowGreen-Green grid. BlueGreen (Cyan)-Blue grid.
Picture
Greens and Blues
Blue Day

The blues and greens are my favorites in general. Intense blues make me very happy, and are probably why I'm an artist.

Four columns finished, two more to go!

I need some more turquoises.
0 Comments

It's Green day!

12/17/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
Yellow-Green to Green range, taken in ambient light. This photo is more accurate.
Picture
Same pastels, rotated a quarter turn. taken under a bright easel light. A good reminder that photos can tell all kinds of tales, and so can light.
0 Comments

The Great Square Box Renovation Project of 2013

12/14/2013

0 Comments

 

Sorting pastels ... this is the hard part

This is my most indulgent box of pastels. It consists of nothing but square or rectangular shaped colors, which I prefer for the straight edges. It was too full, and I couldn't find anything. Then I just had to treat myself to a nice set of Terry Ludwig pastels, which are very soft and a perfect size and shape.
Picture
On the left are some of the new pastels to add in. In the middle is part of the purple-to-red range.

In back are the grids for testing the colors. As long as I'm going to all this work I may as well make art , too. I've been obsessively making color grids since college.
Picture
This is the red-to-orange range, roughly sorted into values. You can see the little squares in the tray where they have to go. Looks like about three times as many pastel as there is space. Ugh.
Picture
Two finished grids. For some reason these really appeal to me.
Picture
And the two finished columns that correspond to them. Whew! Four to go...
0 Comments

Two New sets of Pastels - Great American Pastel review

12/12/2013

2 Comments

 
Picture
Great American "Outdoor Assortment" 1/2 stick set
Picture
Great American "On the Terrace" 1/2 stick set
For a little present to myself, I invested in two 60 piece half stick sets of Great American pastels. I'm a big fan of the recent trend toward half stick sets. It saves a lot of time unwrapping and breaking the pastel sticks, and half is plenty for most colors.

Great American pastels are very, very soft, and come in square sticks, which are particularly handy. I had a fair number of them already, but they came out with these new sets with excellent color selections. I surely do not need any more pastels, but it's like getting a brand new set of 64 colors of crayons as a kid.

The packaging was about the best I've seen. The bottom part of the boxes are made of something like balsa wood, very sturdy, and there was plenty of foam under, over, and all around. They also included color charts for you to fill in for color identification, very useful. The pictures show the sets with color charts filled in.

First the good news. The color selections are indeed luscious, with a full range of hues, values and saturations. The size is actually more than half stick size, more like two-third stick size, which is about right.

The bad news, which isn't all that bad, is that a few of the colors were oddly and unpleasantly hard, which was quite unexpected. There were only four of them out of the 120 new sticks though, so maybe they had a bad batch of something.

Next step: to integrate them into The Square Set.
2 Comments

I actually cleaned out my studio pastel set ...

12/11/2013

0 Comments

 
...I actually cleaned my studio pastel set ...

This is the second largest set I work with, after the Wow Box. In the heat of battle the colors get all mixed around and covered with dust, so it's always a bit of a chore to restore it to order.  Following the good example of one of my talented friends, I even cleaned [most] of them. I'm liking it much more now, and it will last for awhile at least.

I designed the trays and they fit in a drawer under the big work table when not in use. This set doesn't travel.
Picture
Studio pastel set
0 Comments

Cabbage of the Day - Bed Head

12/9/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
Bed Head
Picture
Here's the original photo.
"Bed Head"

I found this huge cabbage plant happily growing in a big garden in the Northern Neck of Virginia.
The plant is at least twice as big as any of the decorative cabbages or kale I've grown, and is the first work I've done with a whole head.

Camera360 photo,
with about an hour of work with the filters and controls. It might become a painting.
0 Comments
    Picture

    About the Artist

    Nancy Freeman has a decades-long fascination with digital art which she supports by painting portraits and teaching various art subjects. Right now she devotes most of her creative time to digital art because it's so satisfying.

    Archives

    April 2021
    March 2021
    August 2017
    July 2017
    October 2015
    September 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Abstracts
    Apps For Artists
    Cabbage Art
    Catch Of The Day
    Demos
    Events
    Garden
    History
    Other
    Painting
    Paintography
    Pastels
    Photography
    Reviews
    The Hill Quilt
    Thoughts

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.