Azure Dragonfly Meanderings

October 31, 2012

Sketchbook

A little something for fun today:

October 29, 2012

Sketchbook

After working on the final details of the painting today I managed to overwork the grass a bit, but the beauty of pastels is that after a shot of fixative on the surface, you can always go back and fix things. Mostly what I'd lost was the vibrancy and warmth in the highlights in the field, but I managed to recover them again. Then I called it done, signed the piece and walked away! Here is the final pastel painting:

October 26, 2012

Sketchbook

Today I added colour in the three buildings to the left of the barn, then blocked in colour for the grass. The field is one of the most interesting parts of this landscape, so I'd like to take my time building up colour and texture. Here's my progress so far:

October 24, 2012

Sketchbook

When I looked at my painting with fresh eyes today it seemed like I'd lost some of the darks in the clouds, as well as the tiny specks of bright blue that were peeking through in my reference photo. I intensified the shadows with dark blue, some purple and black, then worked up the highlights somewhat.
My next task was to put colour in the barn. Since the barn is made up of old, weathered boards and has a very textured look, I kept my marks short and choppy. It was a pretty long process of layering at least 8-10 colours, pausing frequently to assess darks and lights, but so far I'm quite pleased with the outcome!

October 23, 2012

Sketchbook

I had a busy day yesterday, rushing to finish a crocheted poncho – a gift for my sister's birthday. I wanted to post a photo, but as the poncho was a surprise, I couldn't until today. Crocheting has become one of my hobbies, one which I do when I want to occupy my hands, but my brain is done for the day. This is a similar poncho that I made for myself:

Now on to today's work. I started applying pastel to the sky in my painting of the barn. I was quite pleased with the way the warm underpainting showed through in spots, and I occasionally used a tissue to wipe away some of the pastel to pull those colours back again when they got buried.
Here's my progress so far:

October 18, 2012

Sketchbook

Here are the complementary colours applied to my watercolour paper. I purposely let the wash run freely over the paper to allow interesting patterns to emerge:

October 17, 2012

Sketchbook

I've had second thoughts about how to do the underpainting for my pastel of the barn. After doing a bit of research into how other pastel artists work, I've decided to do a watercolour underpainting using complementary colours, instead of one flat wash of colour. Since I'm such a consummate planner (I believe the slang term is “chicken”), I did a digital thumbnail first to see what that would look like:

Now that I'm no longer freaked out about the possibility of completely ruining the pastel painting, I'm going to proceed with actually laying some pigment down on paper! Until tomorrow...

October 16, 2012

The Artist At Work

Today I'm stretching watercolour paper, doing some tidying in my studio and engaging in some non-art-related but necessary tasks.
Here's a funny photo of the artist at work, taken by my husband (also a Tabby):

October 15, 2012

Sketchbook

I've decided that for my next pastel painting I'll revisit subject matter that I've used in the past – an old barn from this summer's trip to Saskatchewan. The barn, which I've previously painted in watercolour, was one of my favourite references, and I'm excited to try to capture it in pastel. This time I've decided to work much larger, on Strathmore watercolour paper that I'm going to stretch and give a warm tinted wash to.
Here is the initial tonal sketch I made to start:

October 12, 2012

Sketchbook

Next was the rather lengthy process of filling in colour and detail in the fishing boat, trying to keep my marks light and suggestive of form rather than belabouring the process by trying to make the image photo-realistic:

Still, the piece needed a bit of refining in certain places before I could call it finished, so I used pastel pencils to sharpen up objects like the rope and the area on the roof of the boat:

After finishing my second pastel painting I'm beginning to feel a bit constricted by the size of the paper I've been using. For my next painting I've decided to work on larger paper so that I can take fuller advantage of the range of textures possible using pastels.

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