Regina Calton Burchett – Drawings & Pastels

Pastel, 5×7

Pear 0903

My grocery store actually ran out of pears.  So my sister brought me three to draw / paint.  I did a pencil sketch last night of the small one, and got up early today to do a colored pencil drawing.

Pear0901

Pear 0902

My friend Leslie segued into writing for quite a while, but now she is back to art and has a lot of fresh pencil works (drawings, paintings, sketches, jewels) well worth a visit ! Click here to check out Leslie Hawes work, such as this amazing nectarine below ~ my mouth waters every time I look at it!

Leslie Hawes - Nectarine

This is one of those little pieces that I just can’t quite decide if I like it or not.  And the thing that irks me is that I made a special trip to go find a dish like this, then it gives me all kinds of trouble.  Ingrate.

Plum, on a Stormy Day

9/22: My friend Jo suggested a crop of this piece, and I think that might help:

Plum, cropped

Molly's Winter

I finished this pastel a few days ago, but didn’t want to post it until the person for whom it was commissioned had received it. Thank goodness she liked it! She had sent me a few photos, and we had decided on the lake scene from Minnesota where she used to live.  A fun experience for me to paint snow – not much of that here in Texas!

Pear to sketch

(Click for larger view)

1) When you start drawing, an apple or pear is one of the easiest things to attempt because you don’t have to capture the exact shape – a close approximate to the original will be fine, especially after you’ve eaten the fruit.
2) If you have a digital camera and are just starting to draw, it makes it easier to see the lights and darks and the general shape of the piece when you work from a photo.  The background and moving light and shadows aren’t a distraction when working from a photo.
3) In your photo software, you can usually change your color photo to grayscale, and this makes the dark and light areas even more apparent (especially if you are drawing in pencil). You can also play with increasing or decreasing the contrast and brightness to get more dramatic lighting.

pear in grayscale

4) Look for the lightest light and the darkest dark on your piece, and don’t be afraid to put them in your drawing.  If you feel like your drawings don’t have the impact you want, it may be because your piece is all middle tones.

5) On an extra copy of your photo, draw a line up the center – if you are drawing fruit or a vase or similar simple still-life, this will make your final drawing much more accurate.

pear photo divided

6) Hatch in a dark background behind the piece, and this will make it stand out even more.

7) You are the artist – you don’t have to put in every blemish and bruise. It’s up to you what to keep and what to ignore.

update 9-21-09:  my sweet sister bought me some lovely pears (the grocery store I went to was OUT of pears!) and here is a really nice small one, in color and in grayscale. (click for large)  Can’t wait to draw them!!

little pear to draw

little pear - grayscale

I love Austin.   I moved here back in 1975 when there were two tall buildings downtown, the black one and the gold one.  I worked in the gold one on 6th street, three blocks west of Congress. I went shopping at Scarbroughs and Yarings and Snyder-Chenards, had lunch at Woolworths and at Piccadilly Cafeteria on Congress, and partied at the Armadillo where my brother worked.  Austin had a population of about 300,000 back then.  Austin was Eeyore’s Birthday Party at Pease Park on Lamar, Aqua Fest on Town Lake, and art classes at Laguna Gloria. Austin is my hometown, even though I didn’t find it until I was grown.

(These are all photos I’ve taken over the last year)

Pastel, 11×14
Finally done
Taking it to the Austin Pastel Society Show at NW Hills Gallery this morning…

Southpark Meadows Sunset

I started this last week, while painting with my young neighbor, and finally made time to finish it this evening. Or close to being finished. This was from a photo I took of Southpark Meadows before all the stores were built.