mARTa's Art

Hijita de la Frutera study sketch, originally uploaded by martasart.

This little girl was playing shy. Her mother, the fruit vendor, had given her approval for me to snap a few photographs.
This will be the next in my series of Guatemalan paintings. Because of the angle of her face I wanted to sketch her out with conte on bristol board first.

La Niña del Lago Atitlán, originally uploaded by martasart.

Pastel on pastel card, approx. 9 x 11 inches

This little girl and her older sister were very gracious to let me take their photo, if I bought a trinket from them. It was worth it I think.

I do like this but I might have gone a bit heavy with the pastel application. My goal here was not to let the yellow scarf bounce off her face to much and make her sallow. She was quiet and sweet unlike her sister the business manager!

Santa Marta, originally uploaded by martasart.

pastel on Canson Mi Tienes
approx 17x23 inches

Final rendering of painting begun months ago. Going under glass today :)

El Bebé no.2, originally uploaded by martasart.

I"m thought I'd have another go at this. This is much smaller, aprox 9x10 inches, done on pastel card. I do like this surface much better. I might have to buy a large sheet! I do like this one better than the first but I'm still not satisfied with it. I think I need to move on for now.

El Bebé de Guatemala, originally uploaded by martasart.

I'm not as happy with this piece. I'm really searching for a support that will work for how I want to paint. This is on streatched wc paper with pastel ground toned with cad red. appr. size 15 x 17. Back to the drawing board!

La Abuela de Guatemala, originally uploaded by martasart.

This pastel painting was done on 300lb arches watercolor paper prepared with Golden acrylic pastel ground and toned with burnt sienna. A much rougher surface than the suede mat board. I really like the rough texture here. This piece is quite small (5 x 7 inches) as I was just 'experimenting' today. I have a large support already prepared for the next pastel painting.

Costurera de Guatemala, originally uploaded by martasart.

I attended Alicia Sotherland's pastel portrait workshop today in San Clemente, Ca.
I had a lot of fun and was grateful my friend Dianne attended also, for she drove and hauled supplies for me.
We worked with nu-pastels on suede matboard. Interesting. No preliminary sketch but began by putting in the background with a dark and finding our shapes. Alicia was a great teacher and I found myself really picking up some good tips. Alicia is a hands on teacher so she had a bit of a "hand" in this piece. This was from a photo from my trip to Guatemala in 2008

Garden Tomatoes, originally uploaded by martasart.

Aidan and Adam helped me by picking some ripe tomatoes from the garden this morning. I grabbed my moleskine wc sketchbook and my new Daniel Smith Watercolor Sticks samples I ordered and gave them a try. I think I'm going to love them!!

Summer 2009

A two week road trip that took us to some beautiful places in the desert southwest. Our travels took us from Riverside, California through Las Vegas, NV, three national parks in Utah and two national monument. Then to Colorado stopping at 4 corners and then Mesa Verde NP. Into New Mexico spending time near Taos, Santa Fe, and Albuquerque. Heading home we went to the Painted Desert, Petrified Forest and Grand Canyon National Parks before reaching home by the 4th of July. All sketches were done on site. Only a few were done using photo reference and I will note that on those sketches.