Russet Leaves, 14″ x 11″, UART 400
Reference photo
Charcoal lay-in
Underpainting
Painting prior to changes in rock and addition of trees
Last night I completed a fourth painting from my October pictures of rocks at Wide Water. I was determined to use different colors in this one! The photo is all grayish white. I decided to use blues and greens and knew these colors would work well with the color of the leaves. This is the same rock and leaves in the “Terra Cotta Leaves” painting, but the view is not as interesting. The primary challenge was the rock itself. Not only was there a lot of it, but when I started really looking at it, I saw a very unpleasant face staring back!!! (this is obvious in the underpainting). There was also a cut in the rock that looked man-made, and not natural. I started out by copying the photo, but over the progression of the painting, I got rid of the face and the unnatural cut. My goal was to have enough leaves around it, and the small bush and shadows over it to minimize the shape. At one point, I cut down the top of the rock to give more dark, and room for the reddish browns at top. I really liked the colors I was using–no violets! The blues worked really nicely with the colors in the leaves. I think that the resulting painting, while perhaps not as striking as the first of this rock, is still pleasing.
Yesterday morning we had a lovely snowfall–just an inch. I left at 8:30 and went to Wide Water. It was cold but really beautiful. There was no snow on the rocks, as I had hoped, but there was snow on the trees. With frozen fingers, I snapped over 50 pictures and finally, I have the rocks as they really are with no sun–green! I have a beautiful photo that I’ll be using as a demo for this Wednesday’s meeting of the Montgomery Art Association and I hope I’ll get photos of the demo in progress. I’m looking forward to continuing this series of paintings with a new selection of photos to work with. And spring is on the way, so there will be new views and colors to explore.
What caught my eye on the original photo was the cute dog head in the bottom left corner of the rock, complete with tongue. That was obviously not the unpleasant face you noticed (I did see that, too). I only wish the rock had more planes in different directions. Love the colors together.
Thanks Dana. I agree with you about the rock. It wasn’t very interesting. I was able to make changes and simplify, but I wasn’t ready to completely change it! Glad you like the colors.
Bonjour Madame,
je vous suis depuis quelques temps et observe tres attentivement vos pastels. Etant totalement néophyte dans cet art, mais ayant eu une revélation de ce plaisir très intense de jouer avec les pigments, pastels secs…je me permets de vous dire mon admiration. Ma reconnaissance de votre générosité a partager vos ressentis à mesure et dans la progression de votre travail en couleurs. C’est très pédagogique de voir les photos à l’avancée de l’inspiration.
Veuillez trouver ici une expression spontanée de mon amour de la couleur. De mon envie de jouer avec ce qui “est déjà là” sous nos doigts dès que nous posons un trait , une ligne , un point colorée sur un papier.
Merci Madame de ce que vous nous offrez de votre amour pour cet art qu’est le pastel.
Odile Maria Isabel.
Merci beaucoup Odile for both messages.It gives me great pleasure to know that my postings are being seen and are so useful. Do you live in France? I will be at the Pastels en Perigord show July 23rd for the opening.I am one of six jurors of the show.