Foggy Beach, 4″ x 6″, pastelmat

Foggy Day Beach, 4″ x 6″, pastelmat

Hello Friends!  How are you all doing?  It’s a rainy day here in the Washington DC area. I’ve just had my third Skype class with a new pastel student and it’s been working pretty well.  I’m enjoying it and learning at the same time about distance learning etc. etc.  We are going to come to hate those two words “social distancing”!!!  (Particularly if you are an extrovert, like me!)

But I’ve really been having a pretty good time doing more of the miniatures.  I left one of them with some paper showing so you can see what I’m working on.  The pastelmat has such a lovely smooth surface so it doesn’t interfere with the tiny strokes of pastel.  However, I’ve also got Pastel Premiere Italian Clay and may try that out to see if I like it as well or better.

I enjoyed doing the “Foggy Beach” picture, using observed color and really seeing slight variations. But I’m not sure that this type of subject matter is the best for miniatures.  I did Foggy Day Beach, which is a painting I have in my front hall in a 16″ x 20″  version.  Again, not sure about the success of fog.  But at least the trees are dark and there is a lot of contrast in it.

The California picture has a very hazy distant background but vivid flowers in the front.  What I enjoyed most was indicating the little buildings in the distant hillside.  I really don’t like the tall plant at all and wish I’d left it out. But my step daughter loves this painting and so I’ll be happy to send it to her.

For these paintings I have been using a lot of Giraults.  The first is exclusively Girault. For the other two I used some tiny pieces of soft pastel that I’ve collected over the years.  I am not using pastel pencils (they are at the studio) or hard pastel either (all my good ones are at the studio).  So I’m making do with what I’ve got and it’s felt good.  I have a picture from Zion that I’ll work on today.  I still like my first one of the rocks best.

I’m finding it hard to film these and it blows them up too much and they look terrible!   Anyone have experience with this?

Take care and stay well.  Jean

California Coast 4″ x 6″, Pastelmat