Checking out my Blogger stats

Commissioned portrait in pastel,
(c) Susan Bertke

     This is my first experience with blogging (unless you count a few random Tweets). Since I've only received a few comments, and all of them from people I know, I wondered whether anyone else was looking at my efforts. So I checked the stats page that Blogger provides. To my surprise, I've had readers from as far away as Canada, Lebanon, Russia, and Honduras! How cool is that!
     So a big thank you to all those who have checked out the site. I hope you enjoyed it and will come back. Please feel free to follow and/or subscribe so you don't miss anything. And leave a comment just to say hello!
     I think I'll share something I did many years ago for a loyal client. Every time Ginny gets a new dog, she has me do its pastel portrait...
Susan

Hocking Hills - Final

Finished at last. Can you see the changes?

Work in Progress: Hocking Hills Version 2

     The two trees on the left really bothered me, so I scrubbed them out. I liked the original bottom area, but decided it needed to be darker to balance the visual weight of the rocks on the right. I also touched up a few other things, notably the background forest.
     Sadly, I think I've lost the feeling of light at the end of the path, and the woods now just looks murky to me. The shadow under the middle clump of foliage on the left looks too straight and too exactly aligned with the shadow above it.
     Time to set this aside and let it simmer for a while.

Work in Progress: Hocking Hills

     My latest painting...
     Now that I've put this aside for a few days, I see several things I want to change. So it is still a work in progress.
      It is loosely based on a very old, faded photograph from a vacation I took at Hocking Hills State Park many years ago. 

Autumn Still Life

This was originally a demo for a class and was done from an actual setup (as opposed to working from a photograph). I wasn't happy with it, so yesterday I pulled it out of my stack and gave it a thorough scrubbing until I had nothing but a faint ghost image. I spent a lot of time on the flowers, which was tricky since I was working from memory. I'm now much happier with the right side of this painting. 
     As for the left side, the less said, the better!  See that thing that looks like a white pear? I have no idea what that actually was. My best guess would be some kind of decorative gourd. Maybe if I just whack it off...
     Hah! When in doubt, crop it out!