John Day Fossil Beds National Monmument and Update on New Wildlife Colored Pencil Artwork

John Day Fossil Beds National Monument

This past week, we had the privilege of visiting the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in Eastern Oregon.  

My Family 

The park has three units: the Painted Hills Unit, The Blue Basin Unit, and the Clarno Unit. There is also the Thomas Condon Paleontology Center that has an amazing fossil gallery exhibit and a gift store. In addition, there is the Cant Ranch House which is presently closed due to Covid. It use to be the main visitor center until the Paleontology Center was built in 2003. 

The National Park was discovered by Captain John M. Drake, who had collected items and sent them to Congregationalist minister and self-trained scientist Thomas Condon. He had an avid interest in geology and paleontology, and he was the first to proclaim the importance of the fossil beds and conducted many expeditions in the area. The National Park Service states that "Thomas Condon believed that religion and modern science went hand in hand - that science was a means to understand the spectacular nature of God’s creation and that science and religion were not in conflict with one another."

And this area, I must say, is one of God's fantastic creations. The rolling painted hills, the variety of wildlife, and the fossil beds telling a tale of a time long ago. 

Painted Hills Unit	Painted Hills Unit
Painted Hills Unit	Painted Hills Unit
Painted Hills Unit	Blue Basin Unit
Old Logging Road	Blue Basin Unit
Painted Hills Unit	Old Logging Road
Painted Hills Unit	Fleabane
Oregon Sunshine	Purple Prairie Clover

Work-In-Progress Update

I am continuing on layering the Terracotta Prismacolor Verithin on the new work-in-progress piece. I didn't get much time to work on it this past week as we were on a mini-vacation. I hope to get more time this week to work on it and to begin the next step of adding other layers of colors. 

Keep on Creating!

Have a blessed week!

www.mooresartgallery.com

Sketch Fest, New Works and New Photos

Hey everybody it has been awhile since my last post. Sorry for the lack of posts. My mom has been battling lung and bone cancer since October of last year. And then the first of this year she also had kidney failure and heart failure. Praise God she is starting to do better. 

Sketch Fest

So last weekend I got to participate in the 100th Sketch Fest.  I didn't have a whole lot of time to participate and I have to admit I am a bit rusty. The last time I participated was during the 90th Sketch Fest. Sketch Fest is a jam art session for 48 hours. You are only allowed 1 hour to complete a sketch. You have the option to sell the original and /or offer prints for sale of the art piece. It's a lot of fun and you get to participate with a wide variety of artistic levels from professional to amateur artists from all over the world and each one has their own unique style. If you are not an artist, you can submit prompts for artists to get their creative juices flowing or purchase art. The art piece below was done in colored pencil on brown card stock. The prompt was "Glittering Eyes". Not bad for someone who hasn't picked up colored pencils in months.

"Glittering Eyes" by Carol Moore

New Artworks

I have some new graphite pieces to share. I used Cretacolor Graphite for both of these commissions and Stonehenge Paper.

"Mick and Kathy" by Carol Moore

"Cove and Sharky" by Carol Moore

New Photo Manipulations

I got to dabble a little bit in college with photo manipulations in class, but I never really got to experiment with the variety of methods and techniques artists use. So, I am still in a learning process, but I want to start building up an on-line portfolio to show clients what I can do. So here are a few photo manipulations I have created so far.

• This photo manipulation was done for Memorial Day. Background sky and flag stock my own. Military stock from Pixabay

"Memorial Day" by Carol Moore

• This photo manipulation was done for Memorial Day as well. Flag and sky stock my own. Military stock from Freepik 

"In Rememberance" by Carol Moore

• This photo manipulation model stock by Faestock . Background stock purchased - pastel overlay KimlaDesigns and sky overlay MixPixBox. Flower stock by Jean52 stock and the butterfly by Jumpfer Stock

"Spring's Promise" by Carol Moore

• This photo manipulation model stock by Faestock. Background and overlay stock purchased from Bellevue Ave 

"Spring Bloom" by Carol Moore

•  Here are before and after shots. All work done in Adobe Photshop

• This photo manipulation model stock by Aquilina. Flower stock by Jean52. Butterfly stock by Roy3D. Hair and pearls hand painted.

"Scarlet Princess" by Carol Moore

New Photos

I have some new photos to share over at my DA Photo Gallery. Stop on by and check them out. I also have some new Stock Photos over at my Pixabay Gallery and over at my DA Stock Gallery

Keep on Creating!

Have a blessed weekend!

www.mooresartgallery.com