Persimmon Study 2

Love love loving doing oil pastel still life.  And, it is a bit safe to just use simple basic shapes and work on shading and capturing light.  I tried to do a floral arrangement and it was a bit of a disaster....so, not sure how to capture more difficult images.  I am really hoping to be able to do some landscapes someday.  


Background are hard.  I usually just leave the paper blank because I am afraid of ruining the picture.




I spent a Saturday attempting a still life in felt.  


I was happy with the composition and thought I could do a lot with it using embroidery (both machine and hand-stitching).  

Ack, it turned out so dark (and this is by the window so it is much lighter than it really looks)!  Thus far, I have not been able to lighten it up and the embroidery is not helping.  It looks ok if you are within a couple of feet (like this picture) but from a distance is just looks dark and rather shapeless.  I am a bit stuck on what to do next....press on and do a lot more needle felting and embroidery work or try again?

Incidentally, I love it when my little ones do art with me.  They used my student grade (ie cheap LOL) oil pastels and worked on still life's.  Sawyer did a pomegranate on the same green dish that I have been using.  Evi drew a needle felted mushroom that I made a few years back.  Brighton did a pomegranate and "lemon".  Glorielle drew a picture.  Jubilee studiously worked on her homeschooling assignments and rung her hands that the other children were not getting their work done LOL.  


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