Regina Calton Burchett – Drawings & Pastels

Austin Bats Sailing from Congress Avenue Bridge

Again, I’m having a very difficult time getting a correct color photo of this blue / mauve / grey painting.  This is a little blurry, but I actually think my cell phone took a more accurate picture than our more expensive camera. This was painted from a photo I took while in a boat in Town Lake, head covered, mouth closed.

The new Pearathon website is now open!

For all drawings and paintings of pears

and all artist authors of such.

Send a link to www.pearathon.com of your pear art so we can created the largest (and yes, possibly the only) website devoted to art of pears!

You are welcome to submit up to three links to images of pears you have drawn or painted, for inclusion on the Pearathon website.  Please see the submissions page for guidelines.

Stargazer Lilies in Vase - pencil sketch - negative drawing

Drawing from life and enjoying the fragrance of these wonderful flowers, I started out just sketching this as a regular pencil drawing, then decided I liked the background to define the flowers more than shading and shadows on the flowers themselves. Then I came back in with a kneaded eraser to subdue and further define the edges of the dark area and to make the light areas more crisp.

Since it would be good to make back some of my cost for art supplies, and for those who like my art, I’d definitely like to make it affordable….  I decided last Thursday to add my work to Etsy, a website for handmade items (including prints of artwork) and vintage things.  My new shop is

www.artistcards.etsy.com

There are only 9 items in my “shop” so far, but I hope to eventually make a card of each of my paintings. I have also listed two of my paintings on there for sale. It’s fun, if you haven’t tried it, and there are a lot of very unique and interesting items on Etsy.

When I finish a painting that has been a challenge for me (whether it turned out well or not), I like to draw or paint something I’m more comfortable with. Also, there are days when nothing goes right, like today. I tried to start another painting, but it felt forced…  I even had problems framing a painting.   So I put the more difficult objectives aside, and sat down to draw a couple of pretty apples my husband gave me.

Drawing of apples 10-13-09

Plein air at a nursery

I wonder if I am doing a disservice to a piece I started six months ago, when I finish it just to ‘get it done’. I started this last spring while participating in an art show at a local nursery. We kind of did the mad shopper bit, and ran around the place gathering up small plants and decor to make our still life. It was fun, but not a painting I really fell in love with while working on it. But it’s been leaning on the wall so long, I thought I should finish it up while starting my three day studio stint (my version of an inexpensive vacation – and a very fun one!) Sorry, little painting, that I couldn’t have given you more…

Finale - Three Pears

I posted this day before yesterday, and then realized (from a question by my sister) that the shadow stem was wrong, so had to correct that. This is the final of my “Pearathon” group. And I hope I finally got the plate done correctly! But I’m not tired of pears yet…

Being a long-time computer user – I did key punch in the 70’s and bought my first computer in 1983  (Yes, a Commodore 64) – I am still a very unsophisticated rube incapable of being blasé about the Internet.

I think it is a fantastic and amazing library where I can instantly – and usually for free – find the answer to any question that pops into my little pea brain.  Who played JR’s dad in the television series Dallas – both actors?  What is the best way to ship pastel paintings?  Where can I find a list of prime numbers?  How can I color my hair back to grey?  Is there a Quantum Physics for Dummies book? (YES!)  Do I give my dog oatmeal after he ate an entire chicken off the counter top?  (Yes, among other options, and you get to watch over do-do for the next few days)

Absolutely anything you need to know is there.  Someone else has had the same question, problem, or curiosity at some point, and other kind people have helped them to figure out the answer.  Yep, I’m a Pollyanna and I don’t care.

One of the things that tickles me the most is when I see that someone from the Isle of Man or Prudenville, Michigan has visited my blog.  I was lucky enough to visit the Isle of Skye, and Holyhead Wales, and Agana Guam, and I’ve lived a lot of places because my father was in the service. So I love seeing that someone in Romania has checked out my blog.  I hope that I have helped someone get started in learning to draw or to use pastels.   Send me a comment, and I’ll check out your site!

Some of the visitors from yesterday – courtesy of Statcounter.com (a free service) show the city, state, and country of each visitor.  Not your name nor anything else, just the search terms and the city location ~
Isle Of Man / Moscow, Moscow City, Russian Federation / Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam / Madras, Tamil Nadu, India / Sioux Falls, South Dakota / Austin, Texas / Coronado, California / Saint Paul, Minnesota / Cambridge, Ontario, Canada / Windsor, Ontario, Canada / San Diego, California / Prudenville, Michigan / New York/ Altoona, Pennsylvania / Oakville, Ontario, Canada / Grand Rapids, Michigan ( I used to live there! - And in Ada, Lansing and Kalkaska) / Collierville, Tennessee / Radford, Virginia / Washington, Durham, United Kingdom / Blandford Forum, Dorset, United Kingdom / Memphis, Tennessee / Los Angeles, California / Plasencia, Extremadura, Spain / Leicester, United Kingdom / Banbridge, United Kingdom / Albuquerque, New Mexico (Hi, Jo!) / Roslindale, Massachusetts

How cool is that?

So Hello and Kanys t’ou? to Manx! (”the people born on the Isle of Skye are known as ‘Manx’ and are classified as British (as opposed to English” – www.isleofman.com) and bienvenidos a mi blog to Plasencia Spain too.

I started both of these yesterday and wasn’t pleased with either of them, so got up early today and worked on them more. My last acrylic was sometime in the 70’s, so it was definitely an exercise in trying something almost new. On the pastel one (No. 5), I tried using colors I wouldn’t usually limit myself to.

Pear-a-thon No 4

Pear-a-thon No. 5