Daybreak, Route 6, 11 x 14, pastelbord with gel

Here is another painting done on a reclaimed pastelbord. The values in this painting were a real challenge (as was the filming!).  The “black” areas of trees are a combination of dark violet and reddish brown, with a slightly lighter green on top. Getting the values of the sky and the light and dark clouds was challenging because, while the darker clouds look “dark” compared to their surroundings, they were lighter than the road and sidewalk. Darkening the lighter areas of cloud helped put it in balance. I should have used a black and white photo for help, but was lazy.  The textured board had too much texture on the top and I had a hard time getting the clouds to look right. I almost gave up on it a number of times and was wishing I was working on UART or Wallis!  But brushed-on surface worked really nicely in the road and made it very easy to quickly lay in the trees.  Hand-made surfaces can be a lot of fun to work on, but they don’t take the same amount of pastel that quality papers do, and you have to use really soft pastels once there are multiple layers. I tried using Unison in the sky and had to switch to Schmincke.  Still, I had fun doing this picture, which is yet another from Mattapoisett. Of course, this could be anywhere.