Art by Niki Hilsabeck

Late last night, I realized I still needed to make a painting. I thought this one would be simple, since it was basically rocks, ocean, and some sort of machinery or pipe at the Oceanside Harbor. This is what happens when I engage in PWT-- Painting While Tired-- it quickly goes from painting while tired to painting while delirious. "What is That?" 9 x 12 Pastel on paper I finally thought I had finished the picture, then woke up today and realized it needed work. So tonight, I went through round two of painting while delirious. I almost threw it away a few times because I got so frustrated-- I would lose my lights, lose the edges on the rocks, keep drawing a piece of metal that looked like a giant grasshopper... Finally, just as I was about to banish this picture to the Epic Fail pile (my art students know all about that pile), I redrew the end of the pipe (?) and simplified the shape. I guess since the shape of the pipe was what inspired me to take the photo, I shou

One of the advantages of uploading artwork on a regular basis is the opportunity to evaluate the way it looks downsized into an image on a screen. When I first took a picture of my "Turtles," I noticed that the black was overpowering the other colors. Normally, I am careful using black in representational pieces. Unfortunately, I got carried away with shadowing the rocks, and the result was this: I didn't see a problem with it, until I was getting ready to post it. So, today I took another shot at it, adding more neutral and trying to keep the emphasis on the turtles and center rock. I ended up with this: Turtles (15 x 20 Mixed Media on Paper) ORIGINAL SOLD I can't decide which one works better, but I think the turtles and leaf are better emphasized in the second version-- which was the point of subduing the black with more neutral. Anyway, I've gotten a big reminder about being careful with that black pastel. It's a little easier to see the fish in the secon

I should have titled this blog "While the baby is sleeping," since that seems to be the only time I can work on it... "Sleeping Baby," 8 1/2 x 11, China Pencil on Paper After taking a bunch of pictures of completed artwork, I decided that this one is my favorite as of right now: (Palm Springs Trees, 15 x 20 Mixed Media on Paper) When I first started taking "real" art classes at UCR extension, I began with pastel. After a year or so, I took an illustration class. The instructor encouraged me to try mixing pastel with water or (gasp) paint, and I just couldn't bring myself to do it. In 2008, I took a more experimental art class, where we were encouraged to just play with different media. Now my kitchen is a mess of jars, sand, paint, pastels, tissue paper, and even some dried out cactus veins. My most recent "comfort zone" in painting is to make a strong acrylic underpainting and top it off with pastel. The picture above is an example of the re