Paul and Jan – WIP pastel portrait of my brother and his wife

pastel portrait of a smiling couple in pastel

Paul and Jan, WIP, 11×14″ pastel on paper. ©Marie Marfia.

Pastel portrait of Paul and Jan

This is coming along pretty well. At least, I’m pleased with it so far, although I’m carefully telling myself not to fall in love with it yet because that makes it more difficult to finish.

This is my second attempt at a portrait of my brother, Paul, and his wife, Jan. The first time the reference photo was just too low-resolution to work. I don’t like to get too detailed with my portraits but that doesn’t mean I can work without any detail at all. This year I brought my SLR camera to the reunion instead of relying on my phone and ended up with a much better photo selection.

This portrait is based on two separate photos, one of Paul that I took and another one of Jan that someone else had taken at the same event. The photo of Jan showed her with her head tilted sideways and standing under a picnic shelter, so the light on her face was a lot different from the picture of Paul, who was sitting out in the sunshine. Thanks to Photoshop I was able to match the colors so that I could work from a reference that looked like they actually posed together. Hurray!

Here are time-lapse videos of the progress on this portrait so far. Hopefully, I’ll have it done by next week’s email. Stay tuned!

Hope to finish soon. Stay tuned!

If you’d like to commission a portrait, please send me an email or give me a call, 904-566-4473. I love painting faces and yours (or someone you love) could be next on my easel!

Half Invented – pastel study of a road in the woods

pastel study of a road through the woods

Half Invented

This is the same place as yesterday’s post but today I just painted what I remembered. I like it better. It’s truer to what I meant rather than what the camera meant, if you know what I mean. It’s fresher feeling, more lively. I like it.

This painting is available in my web store for $110, includes shipping.

Cracking the Landscape – pastel study of a road and woods and sky

pastel study of a sky and woods and a road

Cracking the Landscape, 6×9″ pastel on paper. © Marie Marfia. Available $110.00

Cracking the Landscape

You can’t see it, but my car is parked just up ahead.

Cool and Dark-pastel painting of a path into the woods

pastel painting of a path through the woods

Cool and Dark, 7×5″ pastel painting of a path through the Manistee National Forest. ©Marie Marfia. Available $75.

Cool and Dark

Here’s a small pastel of a path leading into the cool and dark woods. I love going for walks in the Manistee National Forest with my two dogs. Lately the sun comes up sometime after we start so the forest is always shadowy and mysterious.

Here’s a time-lapse of this piece. I was working on the floor of my house. I live in a small place and this was the best light to work by, right in front of the sliders.

This piece is available in my web store.

Sunlit Path – pastel painting of a path through the woods

Sunlit Path, 9×6″ pastel painting of a path through the forest. ©Marie Marfia. Available $110.

Sunlit Path

One of three pieces that I did yesterday morning after walking through the woods. Not everything is dark! Sometimes there’s light coming through all the trees. Just keep walking! That’s what this piece says to me.

This painting is available in my webstore for $110.

Towards the Dark, pastel painting of a dark forest

Towards the Dark

Here I am sitting on the floor in my tiny house, working on the third pastel of the morning. I’ve been trying to do more work per day because I think it’s the only way I’m going to get better. The first two little paintings were fine and I’ll probably post them later but this one is the one that I really liked. Just like the overall ominous quality of it and the way the path just stops dead in front of that line of dark forest.

Here’s the finished piece:

pastel painting of a path leading to a dark wood

Towards the Dark, 9×6″ pastel painting on paper. ©Marie Marfia. This painting is available, $110.

Shall We Dance is on sale!

pastel painting of a skeleton couple dancing on the beach

Shall We Dance, pastel painting of a couple dancing on the beach. ©Marie Marfia.

“Shall We Dance?” my pastel painting of a sweet skeleton couple dancing on the beach is on sale this week from now through Sunday, September 30, 2018. I’m celebrating National Love People Day this week and you can, too! I’ve taken 25% off all prints and cards featureing “Shall We Dance?” for this week only. Check it out!

Time lapse portrait of a friend

Session 1

This is my friend, Liz. She sent me three pictures of herself to work with. I liked the one of her laughing the best. I still have to finish this one, so check back for the final version. This is a 9×6″ pastel on moonstone color Canson mi-teintes paper.

Session 2

Session 3

Here’s my reference.

Talk like a Pirate Day is Wednesday, September 19!

I Just Fed You, pastel painting of a skeleton pirate chastising his pet parrot about wanting a cracker.

“I Just Fed You”, on sale this week!

I Just Fed You – pirate skeleton and parrot on sale this week!

So you should totally buy one of my pirate skellies to celebrate! Here’s “I Just Fed You” on sale this week only, September 17-23, 2019. Comes in lots of different sizes to fit anywhere in your captain’s cabin or poop deck or down in the bilges! Aarghh!

Tall Pines over the Pere Marquette – pastel painting of a river in the woods

Tall Pines Over the Pere Marquette, 9×6″ pastel painting by Marie Marfia. Available $110.

Tall Pines Over the Pere Marquette

Made it all the way back to the first campsite but the second one was occupied so we had to cut our walk short a little bit. No worries. The view was spectacular as always and I’m glad I picked this particular dirt road for our walk today.

This painting is available for $110 in my shop.

Marie Marfia Fine Art

Skellies and more!