A Return to Pastels

Underpainting for River Shadows
Another excellent class with Kay Brathol-Hostvet http://www.kaybratholhostvet.com/ at the lovely, friendly, comfortable Whispering Woodlands  http://www.whispering-woodlands.com/ near Verona. Thanks to Kay for consistently bringing out the best in each student. I learn something every class. This class I wanted to explore how to get light and color into dark shadowy areas, so chose a view on the Kickapoo River of dark cliffs backlit by afternoon light. The water is dark, the cliffs are dark and the trees above are mostly dark. Even in real life that day those areas were quite shadowy. Picking out the colors that are there takes some practice. So I practice by observing and taking notes at the scene. Later at the easel the hard work starts when it's time to figure out how to translate my ideas of what I saw into something two dimensional on paper. This picture is quite a way from being finished. Above is my first effort to get the 'darkest darks' and light areas down.

Some layers of color.

Next I will probably rub off some of it. The red leaves and details in the distance are premature and can wait until the values are adjusted. It's easy to get ahead of the process and this is a good example of that. It's fun to play with pastels. They rub off   leaving a clear shadow of the removed colors making changes easy to do.