Hello Friends

Snowball Vibernum, McCrillis Gardens 20″ x 26″, Pastel Premiere white (unmounted)

Reference photo (untouched)

Watercolor wash added to paper

Before adding the flowers and additional stems

Today I put the finishing touches on a painting I began a week ago today.  I really had NO idea whether I be would successful with this or not.  The reference photo is pretty dreadful!  I used it for the pattern of the trees, which I liked and decided to emphasize.  In order to get away from all green and a thousand small branches and flowers, I started with watercolor and went for a lot of red violets, along with greens and yellow greens.  The yellow in the sky gave a lovely glow that I knew I wanted to retain.  In the photo you can see little bits of blue sky, but I wanted NO blue in this.

I was concerned about the paper.  I realized that I’d like to use watercolor, that I wasn’t sure I wanted to waste a mounted board on what might be a disaster, and that I had a lot of 20 x 28 sheets of white Pastel Premiere in a nice grit (320?).  My primary concern was that I know how much this paper buckles, and it did.  I put glassine and cardboard and a lot of PJ’s on it for my 3 hour class and it helped.  But there were still small ridges that were a problem.

Due to the ridges, I found that Giraults didn’t work very well in the initial layers.  SO–I got out my box of Henri Roche’s and used them.  They are softer than the Girault and went on beautifully, while not being too soft and mucky.

Composition:  a problem!  Not a lot in this photo. But I did see a path leading into the picture and and loved the trees.  I decided to lead the eye back on the left with greens and distant dogwood, then into the picture with the darks of the path. I added yellow flowers in sunlight along the path.  You can see the finished result before I got into all of the detail.   For the flowers, I used various greens and red violets (all soft) and very soft Schminckes for the sunlit parts.  Very pale greens and a yellow.  (I used another reference photo of a bush in sun!)

This was one of those picture that you’re never if its finished.  But I signed and filmed it and am moving on to another house painting–so much more defined!!! It was fun taking the challenge on this one however, and it has a rather mysterious look to it due to the sky and the lovely large balls!

Bluebells at Carderrock, 24″ x 18″, Pastel Premiere “Italian clay”

Initial drawing

Partial underpainting, stage 1

Partial underpainting, stage 2

Beggining to paint the bottom

I haven’t posted in awhile but I recently completed another 24 x 18 in my “Local Wonders” series.  Every spring there is a lovely carpet of Virginia bluebells in various areas of VA and MD.  The closest to me is along the Billy Goat Trail at the area called Carderrock. It’s an easy walk and I enjoyed going there with one of my pastel friends.  The overwhelming sense was of soft spring blues and greens, including the river and the water.  My painting is more literal than I might have liked, but I couldn’t figure out what else to do with it.  I decided to work on the “Italian clay” Pastel Premiere rather than UART and didn’t begin with an underpainting.  I began this painting several weeks ago prior to hosting an out of town guest and doing various other things.  The beginning–sky, background hills, water and trees were all done in the first session. I started with hard pastel, didn’t like them. Tried Girault. They didn’t feel right either.  So I used my softer pastels and that seemed to work. That was how the painting looked for several weeks.

When I came back to it last Friday (with an opening that night!), I decided that I really needed an underpainting for the bottom of the picture.  All that light brown was too much! Using hard pastels–a dark blue, browns and greens–I roughed in the basic shapes of the plants and path.  I chose the dark blue because I wanted the painting to be all blues and greens (in addition to the warm earth tones in the path).  I used a wide brush and a lot of alcohol and brushed it down, losing most of my shapes!  But at least it was good and dark.  I then used softer pastels to put the dark blue shadows back in.  When I got to the green plants, I used the Giraults and they were just right. I could loosely fill areas using the sides, then add details with the edges.

I really liked the way the light on the path helps lead the eye into the picture towards the trees and water.  And there was some lovely light hitting the flowers as well.  I used a blue violet Schmincke for the bluebells and where there was light, I added some soft light pink to them. That did the trick!  Before finishing I brought some pieces of green tendrils over some of the flowers.  They still look like they are sitting on top–but that’s what they do!

I’ve never painted the bluebells before. I was worried about the level of detail and the ability to get them in. I have to say that doing the underpainting REALLY helped a lot. I had it mostly done for the opening that night.