Sunlit Field, St. Andre de Double, 12 x 16, Pastel Premier “Italian Clay”

I just gave a three day workshop at Washington ArtWorks and did two demos. The first was for the whole class. I used two different images and the result was less than great!  But then, I decided to do a small demo the next day for several of the participants about beginning with analogous color when confronted with a lot of greens.  I decided to work on Pastel Premiere, because my new member was going to work on that.  I began with just the left part of the painting and began the greens with blues and the warm bush with browns.  I quickly realized that blue was the WRONG color!  This painting is all about warm yellow greens, and of course, the complement is my favorite color of red violet!  It was only when I employed my Ludwig “eggplant” and other red violet pastels, that it began to work.  Then I used a variety of dark and warm greens over the violets.  The biggest challenge was with the purple loosestrife, which is present in the foreground, both in sunlite and in shadow at the bottom left.  I find that a “bright purple” is a REAL challenge!  I began with warm magentas and some warmer colors, then went to my violet row and added some of the warmer violets.  But I was never completely satisfied.  The shadowed part was quite easy–it was the flowers in sunshine that were the problem.

However, my primary goal was to portray the beautiful sunlight hitting the bush and crossing the field.  I built up to the light in the bush gradually, finally moving to the yellowist of yellow greens.  In the background, I used some of the same colors, but then added some pinks/red violets over them to tone them down and keep them from competing.

For the sky, I used a warm green in the upper right, then a brighter yellow for the rest, toned down with the lightest of the yellow Giraults (the sky is all Girault).

Pastel Premiere does not accept hard pastel well, so I quickly moved to Girault and then my soft pastels.  I REALLY enjoyed doing this painting and using the soft pastels, sometimes with a Girault over them (as in the raised grasses in the middle).  It was really fun!