Pastel Oranges

I own a book titled 'Imaginative Still Life' by MoiraHuntly  I bought it years ago and it is no longer in print, but I am sure you can find a used copy on Amazon or Ebay. If you love still life art, as much as I do, you will enjoy this book. 

One of Moira’s pastel drawings of oranges inspired me to do this digital pastel drawing in PainterX3. Mine is certainly not as interesting as hers, but it was fun to do and I learned a lot in the process.

Back to Photoshop

I have not used Photoshop for painting since I started taking classes using PainterX3. There is a new member in our Digital Art Academy group on Facebook. His name is Dave Higgins, and he has created some remarkable paintings using Photoshop.

I was so inspired to try Dave’s technique that I had to try painting with Photoshop again. Unfortunately, my new computer does not have the ram that I had in my old one and it seems there are not enough slots or something (I am not knowledgeable about this) to borrow them from the old one. The lack of ram causes the mixing brushes to lag and make painting very slow and frustrating. Until I can afford to buy the right size ram, I will stick with PainterX3.

I have become very impressed with what PainterX3 can do, but learning has been difficult for me. All the panels and controls are intimidating. Taking classes has been necessary to help me navigate and I still have a long way to go.

The photo I used for this was from my huge collections of photos I took touring Europe in the 90’s. I wish I had a digital camera then. Toting all that film around and not knowing what I shot was rough and expensive. About 90% of the photos are very poor, but a lot of them may make interesting subjects to paint.

Stovewave Obsession

My son gave me a Stonewave microwave cooking pot for Christmas. Since I just cook for myself, this little single serving cooker is perfect for me. I have only tried three recipes, but I loved them all. My favorite is the Healthy Chile. I could not believe I could make something like this and have it taste so good in 3 minutes!

I use low sodium and low cholesterol products so I did not use the cheese, but it still tasted great to me. The baked apple dessert and the sweet onion are also super.

I am guessing these recipes could be made in a cup or other ovenproof containers, but the vent in the top of the pot probably plays an important role in some of the recipes. Either way I love the Stonewave cooker so much that I did a little painting of it.

Recipes can be found here. http://stonewaverecipes.com/