Lily Pond and "Abstract"

This week I finished the cold wax and oil painting that I photographed in two stages for last weeks post.  I added several areas of paint. I darkened the bottom in some areas and added lily pads, and shades of browns and yellow and blue in other areas.  I scratched through the layers to pull out weeds along three edges.  FINI!

My second painting was started over 4 sample pieces done in the workshop with Mark Russell.  I used up old wax and paint mixtures from my palette to add about 4 new layers to it.
I will let both dry completely before framing.

I am busy with Christmas decorating, shopping, cards and parties, like many of you, so I may not post for a couple of weeks.

 LILY POND

Step One

Steps 2-4

Recent Sunset from my back yard.

Colored lights, all gold & Silver ornaments--Tippy Top!!

Gold and Silver on dresser top

Enjoy a visit to Paint Party Friday hosted by Kristin and Eva and thanks for stopping by.  I would love to hear any comments or questions--Gloria

Gloria j Zucaro's "Pictures & Shows"

This week I am pleased to report that my paintings were a success at The 32nd Annual Art Centre 2015 Juried Show.
I got two ribbons with awards!  Yippee!

"Blue Violet" got a Purchase Award

"Storm Brewing" got An Award of Excellence.

Below are two of my paintings from my Richard McKinley workshop.  I posted about the process for doing these pastel paintings last week.

"C" is for Apple

"Peabody Estate Library"

Have a great week and visit the Paint Party Friday website for great art of all types.  That is where I am posting tonight.

Gloria J Zucaro's "Demented Candy Corn from Tracy Delisle and Sun Filled "

I am sorry I took so long to get my "Thank You" to Tracy Delisle  out for this incredible "Demented Candy Corn" piece of art by Tracy.  I have it on my mantel in the family room and just love it.  Tracy is known for her very original pieces of three-D art.

"Demented Candy Corn"

This past week I finished a pastel I was working on.  I am trying to decide on a title I like.

This painting is 9" x 12" on La Carte sanded Pastel Paper.

Contact me if interested in purchase.  May be enlarged by clicking on picture.  Thank you for taking a look.   

                    Gloria

Gloria J Zucaro's "This One's For Dave"

My fellow artist friend, Dave Haley, always asks me to put some sky holes in my trees.  For some reason I usually hate to break up my dark trees with bits & pieces.  This week I decided to pacify him with paintings Numbers 21 & 22.  I also did those two trees in my series without any smoothing with my fingers, I only used other pastels to blend colors together.  If you missed my Facebook post last week or was it the week before(!) I did two paintings that week but didn't post on my blog.  That Thursday I had the movers come take out some furniture, many paintings and most of my mixed media supplies to get ready to "stage" my house for putting on the market. This week I am having my townhouse painted to freshen everything, then window washing is next and finally carpet cleaning.  

As far as my shoulders, I saw the surgeon and will be having shoulder replacement at the end of this year or in January. The other shoulder will need to be done at a later date. So now it is just procedures leading up to that.  Now that it is a definite go-ahead, I just want to GO-AHEAD!

Here are my last few pastel paintings in chronological order from the end of September until today.  I am posting this to Paint Party Friday, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, And The Artist's Playroom.  Have a great week and keep on creating!

"A Gray Day Over Lake Zurich"

Number 19

Number 20

Number 21

Number 22- For Dave

Gloria J Zucaro's "Try It, You'll Like It"

Here is Number 15 in my series.  This week I tried some new techniques for me.  I have been using a thinner non-sanded paper for my series of tree paintings.  Today I decided to use Wallis sanded paper.

I wanted to use a heavier paper and one with more tooth because I was going to block in with my pastels and then use a large paintbrush and water to create an under-painting.  I used my NuPastel bright orange for the sky area and then a dark teal soft pastel(Unison, I believe) for the tree and main landscape areas.  I also used a light aqua soft pastel for the water.  Then I went to the studio clean-up sink and wet my 2" house painting brush with cold water.  I danced it around the tree and in the land. Rinsed my brush, then I did a smoother straight-line stroke across the water area.   Rinsed and did slanted bottom-side and up to the outer corner, strokes over the sky.  I didn't put too much water and painted with the paper flat.  All the pastel remained quite bright.  I had forgotten to tape the paper down because it is in a tablet form.  That meant as it dried it became quite wavy/undulating at first.  But as it continued to dry it straightened out again...Live & learn! :)  I started adding soft pastels over the top of the now dry but lumpy surface.  It was a little difficult to get a flat broad stroke, but eventually after smoothing some of the scratch marks made by the edges of my Terry Ludwig rectangular pastels, it all pulled together.  As usual I thought by looking at my color wheel and choosing a palette of Blue-Green & Red-Orange that is what I would do.  But also as usual I ended up using all kinds of  pinks, burgundy, violet, blues, some greens!!!  I can't seem to restrain myself and stick to a very limited color palette.

Here is the color wheel I was using and some of the pastels.  The soft pastels are in my Plein air box and are the ones I took with me on Saturday for the Plein air demo and paint-out.  To see that post click here.

This is my post for Paint Party Friday.  Please visit the site hosted by Kristen & Eva and see what about 80 different artists have been doing in all different mediums this week.

Have a wonderful week, Gloria

Gloria J Zucaro's "Little Red Truck"

6"H x 6"W Original Oil on Panel

Questions?

I did this painting from my reference photo of a farmstead in McHenry, IL.  There was a little snow on the ground and the stormy sky suggested that we might get more.  This was also done the third day of the Dreama Tolle Perry workshop, and I blocked in with the transparent oils.  I am really enjoying the wonderful mix of colors you get with them under the more opaque paints. I love the truck in this photo and the sunshine and shadow mood.

Gloria J Zucaro's "Good Will Towards All"

7"H x 5"W Original Ink Drawing with Acrylic Silks Glaze

$6.00 starting bid on Daily Paintworks auction site.

Click on image to enlarge.

This is my entry into Jenn's challenge this week at The Artist Playroom.  We were to use the word "Galaxy" for our prompt.  I thought I would do a design for a Christmas card.  The Star that the shepherds followed, the triangular pieces of the church foundation, the triangular tree, to me symbolize our higher power, God, and the Trinity.  The stars reaching out to all mankind.  The painting is on greeting card watercolor paper and comes with an envelope.  Inside are the words "Good  Will Towards All".  I wanted to emphasize each of the words "Good" and "Will".  See below.  I attached the wording with matte medium and a wash and then spritzed it with some very 

fine glitter mist.  I put a little black edge around both photos in Elements, so that the white cardstock would show up better against the blog page.

Gloria J. Zucaro's Abstracted "Caribbean Moonshine"

8"H x 8"W Original Oil on Raymar Panel

$75.00 Unframed/ $90. Framed in Plain Black Frame.

Unframed/Framed

Option 1-Unframed $75.00 USD Option 2-Framed $90.00 USD

 
Many of my "fair weather friends" have left for either Florida or Arizona and may be home for the holiday, but not for long!  So I won't really see them or play Farkel, Mexican Train or Mahjong again until the end of April.
One of my friends' and her husband had originally planned on retiring in the Caribbean, but eventually ended up on the West coast of Florida.  Not so expensive for the kids to come down.  I thought of the Caribbean when painting this abstracted tree.  It was done with a palette knife and brush with heavy texture application.  10% of the sale price will go to breast cancer research through the Club 47 a Kimberly Conrad project.

Tree Sculpture Series "Late Bloomer"

8"H x 10"W Original Oil on Board, 
SOLD

 I always think that bare trees look like sculptures.  This tree was in a lovely garden in Long Grove, IL.  Our group was doing Plein Air  and  I picked this tree as my subject matter because its' "body" was so beautiful.  Most everything else in the garden was in bloom, so I titled the painting "Late Bloomer".