Plain Air Painting

This is my new plain air painting of Suez Canal. I was painting while my husband and son were fishing. It was a great family holiday!

I truly enjoy plain air painting! It is like breathing in fresh air and breathing it out on canvas.

Pastel Rose on Handmade Paper

I've been thinking about making paper by myself for my pastel paintings for a long time, checking some tutorials, reading related information...This is my first attempt. It is completely handmade paper sheet colored with natural materials. I found it very suitable for pastel painting.

I am planning to continue my experiments with handmade paper as I have a lot of ideas awaiting realization.

History of Soft Pastel. Famous Pastel Paintings.

Soft pastel is one of the most beautiful artistic mediums with fabulous colours and velvet surface that reached to us from the Renaissance time. It is a pure pigment with a small amount of gum Arabic (binder). Due to its smudging, artists were always worried for their artworks safety and protected them by glass. The German painter and art theorist Anton Raphael Mengs compared pastel artworks with flowers and butterflies in the gardens of art. Many art specialists attempted to find a perfect way to fix pastel on paper surface in order to make life of pastel pictures longer.  Unfortunately, all fixatives invented till now changed its original range of colours and ruined its natural creaminess and fluffiness.

Message from the Future

       There is an interesting meditation that everyone can practice. When you need to get an answer about your life or your business, imagine yourself after some years. Imagine that you have reached all you targets and have what you want to have. Try to imagine clearly your house, your business, family, yourself, pay attention to all details. Make a kind of tour around your future life and then ask yourself in the future the questions, which are important for you, or advises. It has nothing common with prediction or future telling. It helps you to get information that you already have deeply in your mind but cannot reach. However this meditation can give you more information that you expect. For example, when I imagined myself and my studio in the future, I saw a painting. I saw it very clearly in all details. I painted it with oil pastel and keep it always in front of me when I am working. It is like a message for me from my future.

Wings

oil pastel, 30 x 40 cm

Step-by-step Demonstration of Orchids Painting

I love orchids. When I look at them, I always remember how amazing our nature is. Many flowers grow from the same root, but each of them is unique. Their beauty attracts us and we enjoy looking at them again and again. 

Painting in Kazakhstan

Here are the pictures that I have painted during my vacation in Kazakhstan.

Above Clouds

60 x 80 cm

Oil on canvas

2012

Apple Blossoms

30 x 40 cm

Oil on canvas

2012

Bouquet of Lilacs

30 x 40 cm

Oil on canvas paper

2012

Golden Heart

20 x 30 cm

Oil pastel

2012

Stairs

30 x 40 cm

Oil on canvas paper

2012

Tulips

30 x 40 cm

Oil paints and oil pastel on canvas paper

2012

Sunset painting

This is my latest painting (40 x 30 cm, oil on special paper for oil painting):

I have painted this sunset using only three colors: blue, orange and white. It was very interesting to mix these three paints in different proportions to get different shades.

Shell with Pearls

I am happy to present my new painting of the sea shell. I painted it with pastel few months earlier. This time I painted it with oil. I find this shell very interesting. You can study it for hours enjoying every little detail and when you turn it, you see it from another interesting perspective.

This is oil painting:

And this is pastel: