My source photo for this demo came from Jo Castillo – a wonderful sky to paint! Thank you, Jo!

Painted on Ampersand pastelbord.  I start by completing the basic drawing with pastel pencils then block in the large shapes with hard pastels (like Nupastels).  Then I do the underpainting by blending these into the surface of the board with alcohol and an old brush. The underpainting can be complementary colors or the color you intend for the final shape. Let that dry for ten to twenty minutes and start layering softer pastels (Rembrandt, Terry Ludwig, Unison, etc.) over the underpainting.(see here for soft pastel brands:Squidoo Pastel page

And what I love about pastels – layer lightly until you like your work. It’s a wonderful and very forgiving medium. When I’m done and several times throughout the painting process, I take the piece outside and rap sharply on the back several times to remove the excess pastel. Don’t blow on the pastel, because you’ll be breathing the dust for quite a while.

This is the largest pastel painting I’ve done to date – 36″x24″ – and I am still working on it. I generally work to bring a painting forward all at once, but there are areas of this I really like and hope not to touch again. There are areas that are just roughed in, and other areas that definitely need more work.

I’m always grateful for honest advice from artist friends, as they can often see things I can’t about a work in progress, and it also helps me learn new things to apply to future work.
Jo Castillo and Ruth Meaders – both gave me some good advice on helping to make this a better painting – to keep the focus on the egret and keep the viewer’s eye from sliding off to the right or left of the painting, they suggested I make the water darker at the sides, and to vary the line of the bank. I like it much better now.  Jo and I often trade suggestions and over the years, we have (I hope!) learned to help each other in an honest but tactful way.  Thanks, friends!

Sky 10-15-10

Looking at the last post, I really seriously didn’t like the painting. Sometimes I can’t tell that until I see a photo. Weird.
So I re-painted it and cropped it. And what the hell, I blended it too.
And layered more pastel here and there. I like it better. At least for today.

I haven’t had much time to devote to painting for a while, so now that I’ve indulged my need to paint skies, I will be starting a commission that will take a while. It will be a challenge, and I’m looking forward to it!

Sky 101010, Pastel, 11x14

I can’t foresee ever tiring of painting the sky.  The continual changing of colors, shapes, atmosphere is breath-taking, and to try to capture these once in a while is never boring.

On this one, I decided to try to do a pastel painting without any blending.  It’s sooo hard.  I know many pastelists who don’t blend, but that’s part of the reason I love doing pastels.  It’s such a tactile involvement with the painting.  Usually I blend the back color of the sky before I start working with the clouds.  So I don’t blend all of the painting by any means.

So I tried it.  Now back to the way I love to paint.

Indigo Lion

Mellow Elephant

Pastel, 13″ x 13″ — (Click for larger view)

I’ve started a new series. I’ve never really even done a “series”, but decided a while back that I wanted to try something new. So I’ve spent the last few weeks having a lot of fun and working on the first couple of pastel paintings. These are jungle animals for kids – with bright and unusual colors, not scary faces, and maybe a little mystery, for sale as prints. That’s what I’m going for. I don’t know what to call this series, so if anyone has a suggestion, I’d love to hear it!

PRELIMINARY SKETCHES

Prior to painting these in pastels, I did preliminary sketches freehand in pencil.  The lion was basically a quick study, mainly focused on how I wanted to do the mane.  The elephant was more detailed, because I was less familiar with their facial features. But tracing these on my light table with the sanded pastel paper taped on top of the drawing did not work well, since the pastel paper is so thick – I ended up squinting a lot and did most of the drawing all over again, using these as a reference.

LittleLandscape2     5×7    Pastel