Harvest Time-It’s Fall!

Happy Fall to all of you!  I’m so looking forward to cooler temps, leaves turning on the trees, pumpkin spice candles, pumpkin desserts, hot apple cider, and on and on it could go. 

The fall season is such a favorite season of mine.   In this season I find much inspiration to paint from.  My latest piece in the photo above is called Harvest Time.  I took this photo in my front yard with all of the props seen last fall.   I went back to this photo reference and decided to paint it when it was still quite hot, no chill in the air yet, but I was ready to have a fall experience, so I created one. 

You probably know my favorite art medium is colored pencils, but I decided to add another medium into the mix with my colored pencils on this one.  I chose wax pastels called Neocolor II.  They look like crayons, but they are way better than any crayon could ever be!  The Neocolor II are made by Caran D’Ache and is a very highly pigmented wax pastel.  They are water-soluble, but I didn’t use water with them in this painting.  Instead, I used them dry and then used heat to melt them and my colored pencils into my surface.  My heat source was a reptile terrarium heat pad, doesn’t that sound artistic?  LOL.  It was a very fun and enlightening experience.  I didn’t know what to expect, but that’s the fun of the journey.  Sometimes it doesn’t turn out so well, and sometimes it does.  This time I was very pleased with the result, even though I had to figure some things out along the way. 

While working on this, the colored pencil instructor in me thought other artists might like to see how this technique is done, so I decided to create a video course showing this technique.  I made it simple for those just desiring to see the technique by just choosing a pumpkin in some grass.  Beginners could even do this one!   It’s fun and it’s fall themed!  You can learn the technique and then apply it to something you would desire to create!  Be watching for this to be available on my website in the next couple of weeks.

If you want to be sure you get notified when the video course is available, be sure to sign up for my newsletter at www.kimkeysart.com.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the fall season!  I hope you create something with colored pencils while you are enjoying the season!  

Kim Keys