Farm Buildings in Snow, 16″ x 20″, Pastel Premiere white, medium grit

Graphite drawing, 8 x 10

Water color underpainting

It’s been a long time since I posted anything!  Today is the first “free” painting I did –something just for me.  I did one in stages as a demo for my winter classes and more recently, I did a 36″ x 24″ commissioned work.  Largest pastel I’ve ever done.  They wanted fall and all I had was winter.  Will post it when it’s complete–almost.

The other reason for not posting is a broken wrist that occured Jan. 10th with surgery and some misery 10 days later.  Will have another surgery, probably in April to remove a metal plate.  But, amazingly, I can type and play piano–it’s me left wrist–so I can also paint.

However, for today’s painting, I decided to do something different.  In searching for snow photos for my class, I came across this one, uncropped. There were a lot more trees at top and I realized that if I cropped it, I’d have something.  I also knew I didn’t want to overdo the background.

I have several mounted Pastel Premiere white boards that I bought at the last convention I attended in 2017!  No alcohol on these but they take water color really nicely and I like the grit a lot.  So I decided it was time for a “center of interest” painting.

I started with a drawing that I really enjoyed doing. I can’t imagine skipping this step in most cases.  It really gives me a feeling for the picture and where I’m going with it.  Then I did the underpainting.  I have to replenish my watercolor!  Most of it is dried up or unopenable.  But I got a lovely violet for the background and used some greens and reddish browns for the rest.  I loved the way it looked once it dried–kind of fairy-talish!  And it dries really flat, which is nice.

I began with nothing but Giraut.  The secret to working with pastel over watercolor is to use very light strokes of a pastel like Girault that isn’t too soft.  By using light applications I could add pastel indications of trees and leave most of the background unpainted over.  I also decided to leave some of the foreground and like the way it looks–at this point anyway.

For the ‘whites’ I used Ludwigs, and some of my AS tinted whites, but mainly Ludwig–blues, pink, orange, and yellow.  The tinted white I used was a pthalo green.  I’m not sure about the blue roof on the barn–it may be too blue and need to come down.  But I didn’t want everything to be so white!

In the photo both sides of the buildings are equally light but I changed it to have the light coming from the right.  I also added a piece of the roof in the left buidling, to make it clear that what is on the roof is snow.

So, I’m pretty happy with this little painting and feeling like I’m back in the swing again!

Hope you are surviving all this wintry weather. Don’t know if any of you are from Texas, but you have my sympathy. I’ve been in winter weather with no heat and light and it’s no fun. But at least the pipes didn’t burst.  So stay warm and healthy and hopefully, get your shots!