Works in Progress

12"x14" Pastels on watercolor paper, FirstPastel @ 2009 NinaRuthie

I took an afternoon workshop last weekend at The San Diego Art Department on Ray Street in North Park, which is in my San Diego neighborhood. I learned all about the wonders of oil pastels. After we experimented using oil pastels with different mediums, we were told to copy a Georgia O'Keefe painting. I choose a bright orange and red flower. I ruined the top half of the flower, so I folded the paper in half and am showing only the bottom half; which was done entirely with oil pastels. I fell in love with them and went to Dick Blick's to pick up a set of the best oil pastels for the money, as recommended by the teacher, Susan Osborn. I chose Expressions by Cray Pas, which cost only $22. I'll definitely be doing a lot more drawings with this medium. The colors are much brighter in person. I used my BlackBerry camera phone to take these pics, so they are aren't exact. I'll use my good camera for the finished images. And yes, I intend to finish each of these pieces.



12"x12" stretched canvas; working title Pink Dress @ 2009 NinaRuthie

I painted this after my class last month with the wonderful artist Pam Carriker. She has the softest, prettiest backgrounds, so this is close to how we did it in class. I painted the base yellow ochre with nickel azo gold over it. Then I collaged vintage and music text, added more paint, including a burnt sienna to darken the edges. I stamped with permanent ink some birds, a feather and more text. The next step will be to cover a foam stamp with white gesso and add more paint layers over that, more stamping and some neocolor 2 crayons over that, before the final image is added. I'm building a female in a pink dress as the focal point. I used Golden fluid acrylics in all of my paintings in this post.

12"x12" stretched canvas; Nature Girl - Part 1 @ 2009 NinaRuthie

I did the background similar to the one above. I used cobalt teal with nickel azo gold over it. I added collage elements, stenciled the birds in payne's gray and painted the girl's flowers with Sharpie Poster Paint Markers. The image of the girl was from Dover clip art and the bird stencil came from an online store called The Retro Art Cafe.

12"x12" stretched canvas: Nature Girl - Part 2 @ 2009 NinaRuthie

Next I used copic markers to color her skin, face and hair. I added more layers of paint, used gesso covered foam stamps, added more paint layers and used chalk inks in two shades of blue over punchinella (sequin waste) to make the circles. The paint color isn't what I want, so next I'll add more layers of paint until I get the right color. Finally, I'll add a drawing of a flowering bush on the right side of the canvas. I might add it by transfer, but not sure just yet.

12"x12" stretched canvas: Bride - part 1 @ 2009 NinaRuthie

I used the same background techniques as the first two paintings - lots of layers of paint, collage and stamping. I made it too busy, so I used titan white paint to cover everything but the collage text on the bottom, plus the image of the bride. Some green stamping of leaves shows through a little, but I like it.

12"x12" stretched canvas: Bride - part 2 @2009 NinaRuthie

I added more layers of paint, then painted white gesso on three different stencils. I'm not happy with this color, so many layers of paint will go over all of this until I'm happy with the color. I want a pinkish-yellow color like I had in part 1. I used rose madder and nickel azo gold. After more layers of paint, added collage music and vintage text, some German scrap in a copper colored and some keys; I'll add some stamping, punchinella and words to finish it. I think it will say, "Love is the Key."

When I returned from my vacation, I finished seven paintings, but haven't' been able to complete anything else. I hated everything I made for a few weeks. Part of the reason came from fighting off my depression. That negative energy went into the paintings and looked as ugly as I felt. I know many artists are able to harness their negative energy into wonderful, dark pieces, but I haven't yet learned how to do that. So I scrapped them and started over.

I took a few card classes and was fairly happy with the results, but the teachers made it easy. One class taught me to use water color pencils, gelly pens and a few other colorful pens. I took a class last week where I learned to use embossing paste and crackle paste made by DreamWeavers. I decided I like Ranger crackle paste much better, although I liked the effect of the gold embossing paste under the the crackle. I picked up a few metal stencils by DreamWeavers and will use them in my mixed media paintings and my upcoming Christmas cards.

There will definitely be more to come, including the finished pieces from the above three paintings. I'm taking two classes from the wonderful Chris Cozen at Stamping Details on Halloween weekend and will finish a few canvases in class, which I will show here as well.

Thanks for stopping by to have a look. ~Nina~Ruthie~

Some Paintings I did Earlier This Year

Those of you who follow me on Face Book, have already seen these, but I wanted them to be on my new blog, just for the record.

Hungry Eyes - SOLD

This is a mixed media collage, painting I made in the Spring. I adhered images from magazines, scrapbook paper, vintage Italian text and some numbers onto an 9x12 canvas and painted acrylics over it. I also used stabilo pencils and numerous mark makers to create the textures and patterns. I wanted to use a limited palette and love the soft look of it.


Pink Circles - SOLD

Here's one I did after reading Kelly Rae Roberts book, "Taking Flight." You can check it out
here. She has some good tutorials for simple techniques. I used bubble wrap for the small circles and a toilet paper roll for the larger circles. I really love circles a lot and love pink, hence the title, Pink Circles, for this piece.

My sister, Melanee Herrera, suggested I Google "circles," so I did. That's where I got the images of the circles on the dress. Check out her blog here, called, "Early Works." She's an artist and the person who convinced me I should start making art again after not doing it for so long. She reminded me of the oil paintings I did many years ago and helped me realize that the need to create is still inside me. She was right! It's been patiently waiting for me. You can Google "circles" here to see some incredible images you might want to use in your own art. My sister collects and sells antiques, as well as creates many different types of art.

This is an 8x8 canvas with collage, acrylics, stabilo pencils and a dress form on watercolor paper. I adhered butterfly wings to it from a collage sheet I picked up somewhere online, but I forget who sells them. I used a lil' cat eye as the jewel in her necklace, which is made of clear glittery, Stickles.

Fantasy Flower Garden

This is my first watercolor painting: Fantasy Flower Garden. I call it a fantasy, because I live in a small apartment and don't have a garden, but love flowers of all types. I painted this in a class at The San Diego Art Department in my North Park neighborhood on Ray Street in San Diego. Brian Sheperd was my teacher and showed me how to use only red, blue and yellow to create these colors. I found an image of some flowers I liked and he showed me how to draw the shapes of the leaves and petals on a half sheet of 350 lb. Arches watercolor paper. I recently made greeting cards from copying prints onto photo paper. Please let me know if you're interested in owning a set of these.