Summer on the Charente, 16″ x 12″, UART 320

Underpainting, hard pastel and alcohol

Beginning of demo

This painting was done as a demonstration on trees and water reflections for my zoom classes (winter 2021).  It ended up being more about the trees as the camera decided to give out during the reflections portion!  Ah well.  I did the underpainting and all but two of the trees prior to the demo as I didn’t want to rush.  This worked out well.  I had fun with the colors of the underpainting and there are small pieces showing through when you see the painting “in person”.

I spent a lot of time on the tall tree and went back later for more corrections.  The trees are completely Girault, with the exception of one light whitish green Blue Earth pastel that I added to the large yellow willow.  I was concerned it might look too different, but it worked really nicely.

The reflections provded to be tricky, particularly getting them in the right place.  At first the reflection of small light bush on left was too low and it had to be raised.  There weren’t any ripples in the water, but there was light streaming over it from the right which nicely presented the effect of water reflections.

The small house and orange roof were a nice touch but presented isolated color, so I added a small amount of orange to the smaller light bush at left and to its reflection.  Hard to see but it really makes a difference when I look at the painting.   Just seems more balanced.

For the sky, I used two values of light Ludwig turquoise along with a light orange for clouds.  For the water, I used a combination of Art Spectrum “Beacon”–a real blue, with Ludwig blue violets and blue greens of the same value.  Worked really nicely to give interest and a little vibration.