Category Archives: Animals

‘Renewal’                      11×14               pastel             ©Karen Margulis

I love painting bird nests. Pastels are the perfect medium for painting nests. You get to use the pastels sticks as a painting tool for the larger areas and as a drawing tool for the weaving of the nest. You can use both hard and soft pastels and paint and draw. What could be better! It is easy to get caught up with the details of the nest materials too soon so I follow the same procedure I use for all of my paintings. I work from big simple shapes down to the details and from dark rich color to the lighter colors. Read the details of this painting on my daily painting blog Painting my World.

‘Beauty Among Us’               11×14                 pastel           ©Karen Margulis

Not only are butterflies beautiful they are often powerful symbols. Many cultures associate the butterfly with life, hope, change. They can also symbolize celebration and journeys. I have heard many stories of Monarch butterflies appear after the death of a loved one. I have had the privilege of painting this beautiful butterfly in pastel.  I have shared a step by step demo on my blog. I invite you to have a look HERE

‘Maya’s Seat’                      8×10                      pastel

Maya Blue is my petite Siamese girl. She is Tobi’s half brother and they love one another. Maya loves to find the chairs that make her look like the princess she is!  This painting was done for a class demo. It is on LaCarte paper with a mix of Great American and Terry Ludwig pastels.

‘Sun Spot’                    8×10                           pastel

We have recently screened in the back deck creating a wonderful porch area just off my studio. I am looking forward to having class and workshop breaks away from out easels. I think I may even set up an easel out there and paint when the weather is good. But for now my cats are loving the porch. They are in heaven and I havent even hung up the bird feeders!

‘Nesting’                 5×7               pastel

I have been experimenting with my underpaintings this week. I am calling them manipulated underpaintings because instead of just waiting for an underpainting to dry, I am trying new ways to move the color around. After my class tomorrow I will post some examples. For this nest painting I used thinned oil paint and actually painted the twigs with the paint. I did cover most of it up with pastel which happens sometimes but the underpainting did help me with the pastel stage. More tomorrow!

‘Sleeping Jennifur’                    8×10                   pastel

This is my demo painting from last night’s pastel class. I demonstrated two techniques for painting a cat in pastel.  In this painting of my cat Jennifur I did the initial drawing with compressed charcoal before adding the pastel. This painting is on UArt paper. For the other technique I like to work on LaCarte paper and I do a value map by putting in several layers of colors in each value….darks, medium and lights. I will post that demo tomorrow.

‘Golden Pup’                       8×10                    pastel

Here is a painting of my Golden Retriever/Labrador pup Heidi when she was 2 months old. I wanted to have fun with the painting so I used charcoal to draw the puppy and left the lines as I added the color. Tomorrow evening at weekly pastel class we will be painting animals and I will do a demo of both this technique and my more traditional pet portrait.

‘Among the Ferns’                   6×6                   pastel

I have been working with the square format this week and trying to adapt some of the subjects I’ve already painted in a square. This nest is 6×6 on black Pastelmat paper. I really do enjoy this surface but I only have one piece left so I am being stingy. I will have to order some more! I am often asked what my favorite paper is and I can honestly say I enjoy most of them. My choice depends on my mood and my plan for the painting. If I want to do an underpainting I will choose Uart or mounted Wallis. Lately I am enjoying Canson paper. I like the challenge to be quick and sure of my strokes and I just enjoy the soft feel of the paper. It’s funny how we can change our preferences of materials as we gain more experience. My advice is to try them all and don’t give up on any surface….you may decide you really do like it.