Red Unfolding, 24 x 18, Pastel Premiere “Italian clay”

Photo reference

Initial pastel application after drawing

Stage 2

Stage 3

Detail of ferns

Filled in but not complete

Detail of bottom right

This afternoon I spent about an hour finishing my third 24 x 18 botanical from Costa Rica.  I had worked on it a lot on Wednesday afternoon and wasn’t real happy but couldn’t do anymore.  Today I went in with a fresh eye, knowing what I didn’t like and worked it to my satisfaction. I’m much happier with it now and want to share the process with you.

To begin with, I had a very complicated image that most people thought I was nuts to tackle!  But one good friend and excellent pastelist told me to go for it and I was happy that I was giving it a try.  I knew that I had to do more with the red plant on the left side of the photo, making it larger and more prominent.  Then, my plan was to use the small ginger flowers to give a flow into the center of the painting where there would be more light. That was the plan!

The details were what scared me!  The palms and the ferns and all that schefflera at the bottom.  (It’s odd to see house plants growing in the wild!).  Because of the details and lack of large shapes, I decided that I did not want to do an underpainting and used mounted Pastel Premiere Italian clay instead.  I did a rough drawing with my graphite stick then began with the upper left corner where there was some sky.  I immediately had fun doing the ferns!  I used Giraults–of course–and lightly applied some darker then lighter color, leaving streaks showing through.  By using the side of the stick in a motion that mimiced the palms, I found it was quite easy to do them.  Of course, I also loved the pattern of front tips pointing down above the red plant, and the pointy leaves standing straight up on the far left. These were the fun details!

I tried several darks for the background and ended up using the darkest blue and a cool green.  I laid in light applications of the pastel, then worked the details in over and it worked quite well. I really was happy I hadn’t done an underpainting!

I was afraid of the ferns, but found them not to be so bad. I just lay in the greens, then put in a pattern of darks to separate the fronds.  It really was much easier than I thought it would be.

For the red plant (I don’t know what it is called) I made it larger and more full than in the picture or in another reference I used.  I used a deep magenta with some dark blue for the dark petals used cool and warm Giraults and Ludwigs for the sunlit petals. I was quite pleased with their shape and the way it gave so much more to the painting.

The hard parts were the middle and the bottom right.  I worked on both, putting in too much detail and finally covered the surface and called it quits.  I knew there were two things i didn’t like in the “not complete” picture.  The middle area was muddled and it was very hard to read what was going on. I had not accomplished the idea of using the small reds to lead the eye into the center of the painting.  The other problem was the schefflera. There was too much detail and it was a distraction.  I began by brushing out some of the color in the middle. I added three dark leaves and then more light to make it clearer.  I also changed some of the ginger flowers, getting rid of one on the mid right and adding a new one in the bottom right.  To fix the problem of the bottom right, I took the blue that was in the upper left corner and lightly brushed it on over the entire area, smudging the leaves and getting rid of a lot of the detail. I immediately felt that the painting was the better for it. I’ve added a detail so you can see what it looks like.

I’m going to do reproductions of these three paintings. They were a lot of work and I hope they’ll be popular.  Now on to something different I think!

Dancing Ginger, 24″ x 18″, UART 320

Photo reference

Drawing with graphite stick

Underpainting step 1

Underpainting step 2

Step 1, beginning sky and background and red flower

Adding green to leaves

Developing the bottom

Further progression

Now for my second 24″ x 18″ from the tropics of Costa Rica.  For this one I’m showing you the photo reference so you can see how I changed it. There were two challenges with this painting:  there was a building and roof in the background that I wanted to omit. and I had competing reds!  Both the ginger flowers and the lipstick palms had reds.  I really wanted to paint the palms as I’d never seen anything like them before. However, I quickly realized that this had to be about the ginger flowers and their movement and not about the palms.

I began with a light drawing using a graphite stick, which I’m finding very handy as it doesn’t require sharpening.  I then laid in the underpainting with red under green and vice versa.  It’s very pink!  After the alcohol, I went to the upper right corner where I’d decided to put in sky with pale green and some very pale orange (this was the easy part!).  I used slightly darker green and cool pink to add in background that looks like fog (but there wasn’t any there).  I lightly added some trees in the distance trying to give the sense of a forest.  My major problem with the background was the progression from very light at the top to very dark at the bottom and how to deal with the middle.  I think i resolved some of it by adding more big leaves.

I put in the red on the upper ginger flower and then painted the palms.  I realized that I had a conflict, as I noted above.  So I put some light greens and greenish browns over the reds to soften them (not sure what stage this was).  Then I worked my way down the painting, working in areas to complete them before going on.  It was pains-taking but I liked the overall flow of the picture and the way the leaves lead the eye up to the majore flower and the sky.

Unlike the last painting, where the title came to me, I wasn’t sure what to call this one. One of my students noted that what I was painting was ginger and I decided that it was about movement and came up with “Dancing Ginger”, which I really liked.

I’m now almost done with the third and most difficult painting of the trio.  Stay tuned!

San Blas sunset, no. 2, 12″ x 16″, UART 320

Water color and hard pastel underpainting prior tio alcohol

Finished underpainting

Step 1 sky

Step 2 clouds

Step 3 Sun

On this rainy cold Thursday I’m going to add two new blog posts for paintings I finished last week.  This one is my Wednesday morning demo and the second of my sunsets.  They are both now framed and hanging in my studio!  For this second one, I was more challenged with the photo. It had white clouds in the upper left corner that I didn’t like and chose to omit.  And in this one there is reflection on the water, which is choppy, unlike the calm sea in no. 1.

Like the first, I decided to do a watercolor underpainting for the sky and hard pastel for the water and clouds.  There are two layers of clouds: distant clouds that are warmed by the sunlight, and closer clouds that are darker.  Having gotten rid of the white ones, I added more of these two categories.  In laying in the sky I used some pan pastel to show the class how they work, but pretty quickly resorted to Giraults!  They go on much faster when one is doing a demo!  In step 1, I roughly laid in where the sun would go but didn’t want to put it in right away. I focused instead on getting the sky the way I wanted it then softening the color in the clouds.  Then, in step three I added the sun–a bright, very soft deep yellow with a soft whitish yellow in the middle and oranges around it.  It really popped!  The final, and most difficult part, was putting in the water.  As I noted, it was very choppy when I took this picture (on the way to San Blas, actually).  I began by using three values of cool blue to indicate the waves and water.  I then found a dull orange soft pastel that seemed right and indicated the light.  But it wasn’t quite bright enough.  I went to a more yellow orange and it didn’t look right at all.  So I brushed it off and found a brighter true orange that I only added in a few of the major light pieces.  This seemed perfect as it produced more of a glow.  I did a little finger blending of the waves but not too much.

The last step, following the demo, was to fix the clouds. I didn’t like the diagonal line they were creating  on the left (see step 3).  So I extended the top cloud with a light piece to break it up.  As in the other painting, I added a small hump on the horizon on the right to indicate one of the little cays.

This demo took longer than the first and was more challenging.  But I’m quite pleased with it and the two paintings–framed in light gold plein air frames–look great together.

San Blas Sunset no. 1, 12″ x 16″, UART 320

Step 1 Watercolor

Step 2 Hard pastel applied

Step 3 Alcohol applied

Step 4 Beginnings of sky color added

Step 5 Warm colors added to sky

Step 6 Further def of sky and clouds

On Monday I did the first of two sunset demos from our recent trip to Costa Rica and Panama.  I was going to do snow but decided I had little interest in it at this point!  I gave the picture a lot of thought

Step 7 Sun added

and decided that I would do a dual underpainting.  My first step was to draw the horizon line and do a watercolor underpainting for the sky. I used a turquoise and an orange, mixed in places, and it worked quite nicely.  My next step was to add the clouds and water with hard pastel. I chose a “plum” colored NuPastel for the clouds and the Indigo blue and blue violet for the water. I chose the warmer color for the clouds to provide warm under cool and the sense of backlighting.

I decided to try using Pan Pastels to show how they can be used.  I find that the one place where they are useful is in these types of skies.  But after a quick try, I decided I needed to first use light applications of Giraults to the sky.  In step 4, I’ve added some light blues. In Step 5, I’ve added the distant cloud bank and the warmer sky colors with Girault.  I then added light layers of warmer colors in Pan Pastel over the blues, which you can see in Step 6. I used a little green as well to transition from the warm to the cool above. I did this at various times. I used a wedge-shaped applicator and found that using the applicator “smudged’ the pastel rather nicely but then I needed to do it everywhere so that the surface of the sky would all look the same.

For the clouds I used various shades of gray violet Giraults. I tried using a Ludwig but it was too big and soft for what I was doing.  I used very light, delicate applications of pastel.  Finally I added some of the high chroma color around the sun.  In Step 7 you can see some pretty garish red oranges!   I toned these down and then added yellow to the right and left of the sun .  Finally, I added the little mists of clouds and the pieces of backlighting and light on the clouds.

For the water, I put dark blue over dark blue, then added some lighter blue and finally some pieces of cool green.  I did very little with it. There’s a dark hump on the left side of the horizon which is one of the many tiny cays which make up the San Blas islands.

This demo took less than two hours and I got lots of help from my class!  It was really fun to do and to show how we use different methods for beginning a painting and different types of pastel to achieve subtle layers of color. I talked to them afterwards about the fact that I view each painting as a problem to to be solved and the importance of giving it thought and knowing what our options are.  That’s what makes it all so much fun and keeps it interesting.  Now I have to go off and solve the next problem for today’s demo!

Abundance, 24″ x 18″, UART 320 8-ply board

Drawing

Underpainting stage 1

Underpainting stage 2

Painting in process

I’ve just completed my first Costa Rica painting. It wasn’t easy!  I’ve never thought I could paint complicated subject matter like this before and I never thought i’d have the patience. For some reason, I’m wanting to do more difficult work, more slowly and I’m really enjoying it.  For this one, I didn’t have to make any serious changes to the photo, which really helped. But I didn’t want it to look just like the photo either.  I knew that i wanted to do an underpainting of red under green, and green under red.  I purchased 18 x 24 UART 320 grit boards from Dakota, mounted on 8 ply mat board.  I did the drawing and left it in my studio for a few days.  When I came back it had warped pretty badly. I was very disappointed in this.  But after my initial work on it, I lay it face down on a piece of glassine and put a bunch of magazines on it. It flattened right out, thank goodness.

Anyway, I’m sharing the initial drawing done with a graphite stick and the stages of the underpainting before and after the alcohol.  I lost some of the drawing with the alcohol. I’ve included an image of the painting in process where you can see that I’ve used a hard pastel to redraw the painting as I went along.

I chose this photo because I really liked the large warm heart-shaped leaf facing the viewer and the procession of dainty pink blooms up the left side of the picture.  I also liked the fact that the leaves around the primary one were all of cooler greens, thus setting off the major leaf.  In the photo, I could see a lot of orangey-pinks in the warm leaf.  I left some underpainting showing through but also added oranges and pinks to the greens and highlight areas.

When painting the many (MANY) leaves I tried to use light applications of pastel so the reds would show through.  I primarily used Giraults, but also some Blue Earth and Schminckes in the flowers and major leaf.

Given the dark background, I thought about ordering black UART but decided against it. I prefer to add the darks and have a hard time when everything is black to begin with. I used my darkest Prussian blue NuPastel for the darks in the underpainting.  When I began the painting I used the Unison dark green, but quickly realized that using the darkest blue Girault was even better.  I wanted to be able to show various layers of greens within the darks and using the blue was better and really set everything off.

I was worried that I’d end up with too many hard edges and I did some finger softening of the whitish flower at far right and some of the leaves.  I used the large cool leaf in the upper right to point down to the center of interest, then carried the cool color down to the lower leaves.

As with my Great Falls Blues painting, I’ve never done anything like this before–not that I can remember anyways!  Finding out that I CAN do this sort of thing has been fun and rewarding and I plan to do several more and make prints of them.  But next week I’ll be doing two Caribbean sunset demos for my classes which will give me a nice break!