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Colored Pencil has been very good to me!

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Colored Pencil has been very good to me!

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This photo was taken for a newspaper article that came out in July, 2022. What you see, other than my ever so grateful smile, are just a few of the 27 magazines and 17 books my art has been published in over the last 20 years. I'm not sure why the photographer changed the photo on the cover of the book to black and white, perhaps to make it show up better in the Newspaper. Since it was done in French Gray it should have a brownish tone.

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In 1985 when the youngest of my seven children, twins, started school I signed up for an oil painting class at the new community college not far from my home. Hardly satisfied with one class I spent the next eight years taking every art class offered and some more than once. In 1988, one of my drawing lessons required the use of colored pencils. I was not particularly impressed and don't remember using them again until 1992. By 1993, probably in a repeat of that same drawing lesson, something about the pencils caught my attention. I began to spend more and more time at home playing with them, making delightful and surprising discoveries. The more I worked with them the more their potential began to unfold. It was then that I decided that colored pencils and I were made for each other.

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This portrait was done in the early 90's as a class exercise. At the time I did this portrait I did not know anything about colored pencil, in fact I did not even like them. I did know, after seeing a photo of a box of chocolates in a book, that colored pencils were capable of so much more but, how to get from here to there was a total mystery. (P.S. Even though I kept the drawing, I did not take care of it so, what you see in the background is a stain.)

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In 1993 I became obsessed with colored pencil. Why, I don't know but I played with them every chance I got. I say played because that's pretty much what I did. Even though I had no idea what I was doing I was observant. I paid attention to what I did not like but, I paid more attention to what I did like so, I tried to figure out what I was doing that made the difference. Eventually, through trial and error, mostly error, I learned so much that in 3 1/2 months my work changed dramatically, from the sketchy portrait of the woman, to what you see here. Even though I was aware the change was phenomenal I still had five children at home so I put my pencils away and did not touch them again until 1998.

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2003 - No. 95, Montefioralle, Italy - Canson Mi-Teintes, color Cream

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In 2000 my husband and I took a trip to Italy. While there I had an epiphany. I realized, at 53, I was not getting any younger and if I wanted to do anything in art I needed to do it now. I have not looked back.

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Even though working from photos taken by professional photographers, or a friend, is a good way to learn, I knew it was imperative that I worked from my own photos so, one day I put these things together, took a lot of pictures and did this. From that day on I've only worked from my own photos making every thing I've done since then my own.

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2001 - Tiara - Canson Mi-Teintes, color Bisque

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Baby Steps 1- Winner of the Grumbacher Gold Medallion 2002 Award

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Baby Steps 1- Winner of the Grumbacher Gold Medallion 2002 Award

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Ah, the process of learning by running into what seemed like insurmountable problems. I really had no idea how to do the  shadow over her eyes. One day I gathered all the courage I had and just did it. In 2002 I submitted it to CPSA but it did not get in. Very unsure of myself, I submitted it to another show. As you can see it won, not only an award but, the highest award for the year at the Art Center at Fuller Lodge in Los Alamos, NM.

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2001 - Robynne - Canson Mi-Teintes, color Bisque

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THIS PORTRAIT CHANGED EVERYTHING!  I was having a problem with wax bloom and had no clue what to do about it. Another cp artist suggested I go over her hair with a soft brush or tissue. I must have missed the part about it being soft. I picked up an old oil painting brush and before I knew it I'd brushed a part of her shirt. Something happened! I know now, but I did not know then. So, I decided to "do that" on the whole piece. From that time on I've been using a "dry" brush to blend the colored pencil pigment.

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Around 2000 - Canson Mi-Teintes, color Cream

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I know the photo is small but it's a very significant piece. For one thing it took approximately 200 hours to complete. Since I sold it, my best guess is it's around 10 x 14, so it's not large. And no, I've never spent that much time on any thing since. Secondly, I didn't think mistakes were fixable. I almost ruined it erasing one spot too many times. I did however, find out that I had to believe I could fix it, in order to do so. Oh, and if you are wondering it's a pine cone in ice.

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2000 - Captivated - Canson Mi-Teintes - color Cream

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On this one I learned to do the darks first and save the lights for last. Floating pigment and brushing loose pigment away will contaminate lighter colors making them difficult, if not impossible to clean.

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2003 - First Kiss - Canson Mi-Teintes, color White

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A portrait of my Granddaughter Emma; my first attempt doing an animal and grass...the little toes were an added bonus.

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2003 - Great Aunt Rachael - Canson Mi-Teintes, color Sand

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The first piece I did using Prismacolors French Grays.

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After taking a workshop from Lee Hammond in 2002 I wanted to see how well I understood value so I decided to do several portraits in black & white.

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2003 - She Was Only Sixteen - Canson Mi-Teintes, color Sand

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My beautiful Mother when she was sixteen rendered in Prismacolors French Gray's, Black & White with a touch of blue in the eyes.

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2004 - My first published piece: 100 Ways to Paint People and Figures, an International Artists Publication.

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2004 - My first published piece: 100 Ways to Paint People and Figures, an International Artists Publication.

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2003 - Great Aunt Rachae l- Canson Mi-Teintes, color Sand

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Prismacolors French Gray's, Black & White with a whisper of color.

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I drew the design on the gown with a tortillon dipped in powdered graphite, the rest was done with a 2B mechanical pencil.

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The background was done with powdered graphite and her hair with an eraser.

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2005 - Revealed - UArt 800 grain sandpaper.

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2005 - Now You Know - UArt 800 grain sandpaper.

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2003 - Simply Red - Kitty Wallis White sandpaper.

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The judge said, my piece was perfect and fit the criteria for the Best of Show award, but she could not give it to me because it was 8 x 10. According to her that was too small. Not a problem! From that time on I worked larger.

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2004 - 98 Cents per Pound - UArt 800 grain sandpaper.

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A total nightmare to do. I wanted to start over more times than I could count. Once completed however, all kinds of wonderful things happened and a series ensued. All I can say is I am glad I persevered. Unfortunately the photo is not good, as was pre-digital and  taken with a film camera.

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2004 - I Will Remember You - UArt 800 grain sandpaper.

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Oh gee...I learned a really good lesson on this one. If you use an acrylic spray to seal your piece and it runs, don't try to fix the run with your finger. You might regret it...

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2005 - Pull to Open - UArt 800 grain sandpaper.

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2005 - The Magnificent Seven - UArt 800 grain sandpaper.

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Winner the 2005 International Artists Magazines Grand Prize Award 

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Winner the 2005 International Artists Magazines Grand Prize Award 

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2006 - The Long Way Home - UArt 800 grain sandpaper.

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2006 - What We All Have in Common - UArt 800 grain sandpaper.

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2007 - Light Crisp Tasty - Fortune Inside - UArt 800 grain sandpaper.

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2007 - BEST OF SHOW - CPSA Award for Exceptional Merit & CIPPY Award

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2007 - BEST OF SHOW - CPSA Award for Exceptional Merit & CIPPY Award

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2006 - Reflecting - UArt 800 grain sandpaper.

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2007 - Tenderly Morning Comes Night Slips Quietly Away - UArt 800 grain sandpaper.

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2007 - BEST OF SHOW - CPSA Award for Exceptional Merit & EXPY Trophy - Explore This 4

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2007 - BEST OF SHOW - CPSA Award for Exceptional Merit & EXPY Trophy - Explore This 4

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Tenderly Morning Comes Night Slips Quietly Away

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2008 - Yesterday Morning When I Was Young - UArt 800 grain sandpaper.

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If I had a tricycle as a child I feel sure it would have looked like this. This one however needs some tender loving care.

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2008 - Her Eyes So Blue - 2008 - Canson Mi-Teintes, color Sand

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Prismacolors French Gray 90%, 70%, !0%, Black & White with a touch of blue in the eyes.

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2013 - I Am Not What I Seem - UArt 800 grain sandpaper.

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Once I saw the photo I used for reference I dropped everything to do this piece.

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2011 - Living Inside the Glow - UArt 800 grain sandpaper.

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2008 - Having Fun With Red & Green - UArt 800 grain sandpaper.

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I did not do what I intended to do and that was use complimentary colors under, and/or over, its compliment. Since I could not bring myself to do that I just had fun doing it my way.

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2012 - Sweet Seduction - Colored Pencil & Graphite 

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2012 - BEST OF SHOW - CPSA EXPY Award & the Prismacolor Award - Explore This! 8

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2012 - BEST OF SHOW - CPSA EXPY Award & the Prismacolor Award - Explore This! 8

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I make a practice of working in Graphite every now and then just to make sure I'm still seeing and understanding Value.

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2015 - A Moment in Slow Motion - UArt 800 grain sandpaper.

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I saw this little girl in Walmart in 2008.  Agreeing to a photo session, she and her Mother met me at her Grandmothers home. Digital may have been available at that time but I was using film. To this day, I am still doing portraits of her from the photos I took then. Oh, and I have not seen her since.

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2015 - The Fragility of Lives & Dreams - UArt 800 grain sandpaper.

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2015 - It Don't Make Sense But It's So Much Fun - UArt 800 grain sandpaper.

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2015 - First Place & Grand Prize Winner - UArt Colored Pencil Competition & 2017 - IAC AWARD OF EXCELLENCE - 32th Annual Texas & Neighbors Regional Art Exhibition

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2015 - First Place & Grand Prize Winner - UArt Colored Pencil Competition & 2017 - IAC AWARD OF EXCELLENCE - 32th Annual Texas & Neighbors Regional Art Exhibition

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Oops...As you know I blend with a dry brush but I rarely blend skin tones. As the brush mixes the colors they change creating one flat color, plus they darken and intensify. Everything else works great; skin tones not so much. While blending a strand of hair I accidently blended a small area on the neck. Since it was visible, and looked bad, I was left with no choice. I had to blend it all or give up on the piece. I decided to blend it, but the result was intense.  I honestly thought it was ruined so, I put it away. Meanwhile I wondered it there was anything I could do to save it. At this point I had nothing to lose so I went over the neck with Yellowed Chartreuse. Much to my surprise it knocked back some of the reds and saved the piece.

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It Don't Make Sense but it's So Much Fun

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2018 - Sunshine in the Heart of Winter - Canson Mi-Teintes 

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I chose a mid-tone paper, I'm not sure what color, for this portrait thinking it would be easy because I could use browns. Was I ever wrong. After considerable thought and some experimentation I tried Raspberry & Black Raspberry. Much to my surprise they worked.

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2018 - Never Been a Reason - Canson Mi-Teintes, color Sand

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Prismacolors French Gray's

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2015 - Barriers are Often Just in the Mind 

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2018 - The Substance of Things Hoped For - UArt 800 grain sandpaper.

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I absolutely loved doing this!

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Still playing with negative space and learning...

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Still playing with negative space and learning...

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I wanted to remove a flower from the background, lower right hand side, but wasn't sure I could do it. I used every trick I knew for removing pigment. There was some residue still visible but once I went over it with the green I'd previously been using it turned out better than my expectations!

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2020 - Moonlight Ladies - Blue Canson Mi-Teintes 

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2022 - One Day We Too Become Ghosts - UArt 800 grain Black sandpaper.

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As a rule I do not work on black paper. I feel it dims and dulls the lights, but UArt came out with a black sandpaper and I wanted to give it a try. Even though I like the piece overall I am not happy with how it turned out.

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2021 - Fortunes in a Cookie - Dura-Lar .003 2-sided drafting film by Grafix.

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And then there was Drafting Film...Oh what fun!

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And then there was Drafting Film...Oh what fun!

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I was asked to teach a couple of workshops using drafting film. Since my experience was limited, I did not feel like I knew enough about it to teach so, I got busy. Honestly, in spite of some of it's peculiar traits, I love the stuff!

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2021 - Dura-Lar .003 2-sided drafting film by Grafix.

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I'm just playing here with line and negative space. I chose a discontinued color, Steel, for the background and put it on the back side of the paper. Fact is, I've had that pencil for years. What the heck was I was saving it for? Anyway, it has no title because I did it just to learn, but I love how it turned out.

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2021 - Fortune Cookie Wisdom - Dura-Lar .003 2-sided drafting film by Grafix.

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 2021- Dura-Lar .003 2-sided drafting film by Grafix.

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This piece does not have a title because I did it just to learn how to work on drafting film. I learned a lot and I recognize things I should have done different but overall, I love how it turned out.

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In 2008 I decided I wanted to paint in oil. Since I'd built so much momentum in colored pencil I knew I'd be taking a risk. The risk had to do with time since there are only so many hours in a day. Like everyone else, my time is not always my own. Time doing oil meant time not doing colored pencil and vice versa, but I couldn't help myself, I wanted to paint. Did it come easy? Absolutely not! I spent two frustrating years not understanding a brush and why I could not get it to do what I could get a pencil to do. One day a little voice inside my head said, "Linda, take what you know about colored pencil and apply it to oil."  So I took what I knew about colored pencil and applied it to oil. Once my approach changed everything changed and for the most part, ended my frustration.

Now, when it comes to deciding which medium to work in, I let my photos tell me.  Some say, "I have to be done in colored pencil", while others say, "I want to be done in oil." That's it, that's how I decide and it works for me!

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I loved, loved, loved painting this. I learned so much about glazing which is similar to layering in colored pencil. I couldn't have done it any other way.

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2013 - Oil on Canvas - Though Wind and Waters Roar 

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Second place, National Oil & Acrylic Painters Society & the Dunnegan Gallery of Fine Art, Purchase Award.

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Second place, National Oil & Acrylic Painters Society & the Dunnegan Gallery of Fine Art, Purchase Award.

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Rocks! And I painted every one of them. Sometimes I wonder! But isn't it gorgeous? I took the reference photo in Cabo San Lucas on my first cruse with Ann.

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2012 - Oil on canvas - The Old Cookville Store 

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2016 - Award of Excellence - National Oil and Acrylic Painters Society

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2016 - Award of Excellence - National Oil and Acrylic Painters Society

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This! What a pain! I learned so much and it turned out better than I'd hoped, but never again. By the way it was purchased by a relator.

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2013 - Oil on canvas - A Place to Call Home - 2013

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2018 - FINALIST/WINNER in the 7th Plein Air Salon Art Competition & the winner of the December/January bi-monthly competition for the Best Outdoor Still Life.

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2018 - FINALIST/WINNER in the 7th Plein Air Salon Art Competition & the winner of the December/January bi-monthly competition for the Best Outdoor Still Life.

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THIS IS NOT JUST A PAINTING of some blue pots and yellow flowers, it's a painting that reveals a lot about me. You see, I chose those flowers specifically because they were a weed and they did not belong where they were growing. So, how does that reveal anything about me? When I began this journey in 2000 I felt like an outsider, like a nobody, like I did not belong in the art world. Who was I to have this dream?

By 2013, when this painting was in the planning stages I knew what I wanted to do. I knew what I wanted to say. As you can see in the painting, self perceived weed or not, I put myself there anyway. Do I still feel like an outsider, like a nobody, like I do not belong? No! Not because of my accomplishments, but because I realized those feelings had more to say about how I felt about me, than the world of art.  I love the painting because of the intention it represents. I purposed, by hard work and tenacity, to plant myself there in spite of what I thought or felt.

Happily, I can say, I am where I am supposed to be and I am loving every minute.

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2012 - Oil on Canvas - It Never Crossed My Mind 

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2012 - International Artists Magazine, Third Prize Winner - Challenge 72, Favorite Subjects.

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2012 - International Artists Magazine, Third Prize Winner - Challenge 72, Favorite Subjects.

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I'd never painted fur. I was surprised at how well it turned out.

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2013 - Oil on canvas - Lamps of Silver & Gold Have We - 2013

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Since every painting has to do with problem solving, I guess you could say this painting was an experiment to see if I could go from and extreme light, that happened to be yellow, to a very dark, dark that happened to be Indigo Blue and pull the two of them together, ever so gently, without messing up, and I did.

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2021 - An Event in Summer - Oil on canvas

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In my opinion, my best painting to date...one of the 100 Runners-Up is Southwest Art's 2022  Artistic Excellence Competition.

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In my opinion, my best painting to date...one of the 100 Runners-Up is Southwest Art's 2022  Artistic Excellence Competition.

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To be considered the best, I suppose, is a matter or opinion so, in my opinion...It's my personal favorite not because of subject matter but because everything worked! Wait! I forgot, one of the flowers did not turn out the color I wanted, other than that it all came together smoothly.

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2014 - Oil on canvas - Breaking the Ties that Bind 

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2014 - Silver Medal & Art Patrons Purchase Award - 29th Annual Bosque Art Classic

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2014 - Silver Medal & Art Patrons Purchase Award - 29th Annual Bosque Art Classic

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The title has everything to do with the painting. Because of the way I approached this painting I began to break free of a lot of things that had me bound.

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The Joy of Finding is Often in the Looking

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2015 - Oil on canvas - The Fragile Little Worlds Between the Shadows & the Light 

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2015 - IAC Award of Excellence, 30th Annual Texas & Neighbors Regional Art Exhibition & 2018 -First Place/Best of Show - Art of The Heartland National Juried Competition

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2015 - IAC Award of Excellence, 30th Annual Texas & Neighbors Regional Art Exhibition & 2018 -First Place/Best of Show - Art of The Heartland National Juried Competition

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This painting presented me with my greatest challenge. How do you paint spider webs? Well...um...I did say it was my greatest challenge.

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The Fragile Little Worlds Between the Shadows and the Light-Oil.JPG

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2022 - A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever - 24 x 24

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One of my latest oil paintings.

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2022 - Gorgeosity - UArt 800 grain sandpaper.

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Demo piece for the 2022 June/July Issue of the International Artists Magazine

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Demo piece for the 2022 June/July Issue of the International Artists Magazine

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2021 - Kayleigh - UArt 800 grain sandpaper.

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Still learning...Third place winner in Art of The Heartland 2022 National Juried Competition.

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Still learning...Third place winner in Art of The Heartland 2022 National Juried Competition.

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Kayleigh is the first piece I've done using multiple brands of colored pencils. It was a little daunting but whew...what and energizing, learning experience!

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If we are not learning it gets boring. If we are not challenged it gets boring. If we think we know it all it gets boring. (FYI, at one point I thought I knew everything there was to know about colored pencil, thankfully I woke up and realized I did not.)

Every piece I work on presents problems that need to be solved. Occasionally I attempt something that turns out to be a complete failure. I regret the lost time more than the failure, but even if I wasn't successful in the attempt it's not all bad. Learning from success and learning from failure are two sides of the same coin and both, depending on which side of the coin you focus on, can be beneficial. I am truly thankful for the hardships, difficulties and struggles, without them I would not be where I am today.

I absolutely love what I do. The only time I get confused is if I temporarily get off track and do this for another reason, like an exhibition or for the galleries. From my heart to your heart, I am the happiest when I do this for me...

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2016 - Oil on Raymar Panel - It Goes Without Saying 

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This painting sat unfinished for three years because I had no idea how to paint the reflection of the garlic on the jar. After a few more years of experience I sat down in one day and did what I could not do before.