Yogi Bear in Oil Pastel

“We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face… we must do that which we think we cannot.”
–Eleanor Roosevelt

Oooooo… Good one! 




Yogi Bear in Oil Pastel – 4″ x 6″ Postcard

So I have gone a whole 2 weeks without doing any art.  I don’t know how much longer I can do it.  I guess I just have to get up earlier and paint a little something before I study tomorrow.  I’m going to go fly, too, if the plane is available.  I have to get this done.    Once I get my Private Pilot’s  Certificate, maybe life can return to normal.  Who am I kidding?  Then it will be time for some adventures! 

Eleanor Roosevelt

“Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.”

--Eleanor Roosevelt

Although she had already won international respect and admiration in her role as First Lady to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt’s work on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights would become her greatest legacy. She was without doubt, the most influential member of the UN’s Commission on Human Rights.  More…

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt



Impressionist Rose Garden – Oil Pastel

Here is my little attempt at Impressionism.   It’s oil pastel on black pastel paper.  I thought it was fun, but it is so not me.    For the first 2 years after I started painting again (after a 30 year break) I was trying everything I saw.  I grew in leaps and bounds during that time … and so did my art supply stash! 

About Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was a powerful political figure in her own right, crusading tirelessly for humanist causes. She was born in New York in 1884 and was orphaned young. After Franklin was struck by polio, she acted as his eyes and ears. She was central to the creation of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which she considered her crowning achievement, and wrote numerous essays, including a long-running column called “My Day.” She died in 1962.

Clematis – Oil Pastel

“Make voyages! — Attempt them! — there’s nothing else…”
– Tennessee Williams



Clematis – Oil Pastel

This is done from the same reference that I made the block print from for yesterday’s post.  Isn’t it fun to be able to create anything we want and switch it up any way we want…. within the limits of our skills, anyway.   Like Tennessee Williams said…  “Make voyages! – Attempt them! – There’s nothing else…”

About Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams was the pen name of Thomas Lanier Williams, the multiple-award-winning Southern Gothic playwright best known for his plays Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie. He was born in 1911 in Mississippi, where he had a difficult childhood with an abusive father, a smothering mother, and a schizophrenic sister. His emotionally honest plays often feature sensitive souls who don’t fit into a confining culture. He spent most of his adult life in New York City. He died in 1983.

White Magnolia

“There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something tomorrow.”
– Orison Swett Marden



White Magnolia
Oil Pastel on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Whenever I see someone do something beautiful in oil pastel, I want to dig mine out and try them again.  There’s something fun and magical when it works.  Most of the time, it doesn’t work for me.  I think because they are so big and awkward to a detail oriented watercolor person.  They just feel foreign in my hand.  I do still get them out from time to time and I have a lot of respect for pastel artists.

About Orison Swett Marden

Orison Swett Marden, the American writer who is considered the forerunner of motivational authors, wrote an average of two books a year from 1894 to 1924. He was born on a New England farm in 1850. During college, he worked in hotel management. He then used his seed money to buy a resort in Rhode Island. Wanting to inspire people as he himself had been inspired by British author Samuel Smiles, he began writing books like You Can, But Will You? and founded Success Magazine. He died in 1924.