Lemon With Your Tea
Sandi Hester, oil
Sandi Hester
Paintings by Sandi Hester
April 27, 2018
Portrait
Oil painting from previous sketch.
April 25, 2018
Self Portraits
Sandi Hester, self portrait
Sandi Hester, oil, self portrait
Sandi Hester, oil, self portrait
Here are a couple of self portraits. All through history artists have used themselves as subjects to paint or draw – sometimes to portray or “say” something about themselves, but I think often it’s just because it’s a free and available model – I know that’s the case for me. In the past I’ve dressed-up in something I’d like to paint and had Grady take pictures of me around the yard or sitting at a table reading or drinking tea – just so I would have a figure to paint under the lighting I liked. So, it has nothing to do with being interested in self – but having an available subject :)! Hope you enjoy these! The first one is a sketch I did in less than 5 minutes today!
April 11, 2018
Oil Pastel Sketches
REALLY enjoying these oil pastels to sketch with!
March 29, 2018
Little Artists in My Studio
Hannah and Macy are two of my nieces and we have done many art lessons over the years and they continue to amaze me. Today Hannah (oldest) had her first oil painting lesson and Macy worked in watercolor and gouache. We started the day off by going to a local nursery to pick out flowers for our still life (they found out that that’s a hard decision to make!). We covered a ton today – value, color, composition, color mixing, texture, and lots more. They killed it! We were ALL exhausted! Hannah kept taking breaks and saying she needed to stretch 🙂 – that’s me all day long (stretching and working out sore muscles from standing and painting – you didn’t know it was so taxing did you?!).
Hannah’s oil
Macy’s watercolor
Here’s a quick video of them in action – there was serious concentration going on in this studio today – no playing around – they were serious artists today. We did take Cooper (my dog) breaks though – always nice to have a studio dog to love on when you need to take a break from painting!
March 15, 2018
African Women And Children
Oil by Sandi Hester
A theme I return to over and over and I have painted this in every medium I’ve ever tried. This one went to a new home this week. I’m honored to have this painting hanging in my dear friend’s home.
March 6, 2018
Summer Morning Light
oil by Sandi Hester
A still life I did one summer in my normal set-up style – still life set up on a table right outside my studio window on a day with strong direct sun light – doesn’t get better than that for me!
February 23, 2018
Oil Pastel Sketches
I’ve been playing with my new oil pastels and I’m loving them! The colors look so different on black and white paper so it’s been fun seeing how the different colors look. I’m learning that I don’t love layering them – I think they look best with each color standing alone on its own. I think these are going to make a perfect medium for my travels this summer and I’m looking forward to making some colorful sketches in Maine this summer!!! Let me know what you think about this medium for sketching.
Here I first did a black and white sketch and I liked the shapes and value so I played around with doing it in color I think I like the black and white better.
I’ve been doing some really large paintings in oil kind of like this sketch – once I get some pics I’ll share them here with you. I’ve been doing them in oil bars and really really chunky paint. There little guys were SO much fun to do with my oil pastels though – I will definitely be sketching more animals (probably some birds soon) with this new medium.
February 9, 2018
My New Website!!!!!!
I’ve launched my new website sandihester.com and I’m so excited to share it with you!!! I’ve been working on it for about a year and I’m over the moon with how it’s turned out. I would LOVE for you to check it out and let me know what you think. Feedback would be greatly appreciated! Also, on the contact page you can sign-up to be notified when I update things on the site.
You will find paintings in categories and I will regularly update my studio page with more pics from my studio (there’s already lots of pics there now!). From the website you can get to this blog and to my Instagram site. Hope you enjoy it!!!!!!!
February 7, 2018
New Art Supplies!
I just got in a whole new box of oil pastels. It’s a medium I’ve dabbled in for sketching but I only have 4 colors and I thought this could be a good medium for sketching this summer – we have a lot of travel coming up. First things first when getting something like this is to do a color chart. I’m a total art nerd and I love nothing more than doing color charts – especially with a new medium or new colors. An artist MUST know her medium and how her colors play together and color charts is a great place to start. Besides the fact that color charts are SOOOOOO pretty – or at least I think so. These pastels are like “painting” with colored butter and they make you stay loose. I love a medium or tool that keeps you from getting too detailed AND something that allows you to make marks and keep those marks is a winner in my book!
This is what they looked like when I first opened the box. Then I rearranged them so they were laid out like my normal layout – color families from light to dark.
Sandi Hester 