Art by Niki Hilsabeck

        "Approaching" 5 in x 6.75 in mixed media on paper In 2004, I signed up for my first official art class on a college campus.  I'd already been teaching public school for a few years, and needed to renew my credential. To do so, I needed to take some post-graduate units.  To my surprise, I was informed that those units could be in any subject!  I decided to go ahead and explore a life-long love that I'd never spent much time learning in a classroom: art classes. My grandmother was a painter, so thanks to her I'd spent plenty of time making art.  When I chose my first "real" art class, I picked one called "The Magic of Pastel Painting."  I knew I loved to play around with oil pastels.  I assumed the class would teach me how to use them properly. To my surprise, the materials list didn't include oil pastels-- instead, it said to bring soft (or what we sometimes called "chalk") pastels, along with a special type of paper.  I p...

"Pretty Wild" 9 x 12 Pastel (oil and chalk) on paper Click here to buy print: http://www.redbubble.com/people/nikihilsabeck/art/6227032-1-pretty-wild-pastel I'm finding it quite therapeutic to paint random scenes from nature these days (in my usual messy fashion of course). What turned me off to a lot of these types of scenes initially was that I didn't want to get caught up in all of that detail... so many leaves, branches, petals, etc! I've since become comfortable focusing on emphasizing just a few details, and making the paintings mostly about the texture, patterns, shapes, and colors. It's important to work the whole painting at once, rather than get sucked into making each area perfect before moving on to the next. I started this one with the oil pastels, using dark blue and purple to map out the main shapes for the branches and larger flowers, and then adding in the overall patterns of flowers and leaves. I tried to detail a few leaves or flowers, just...