Tag: hills

Playtime

For some reason I remembered the fun I have had with pastels – soft, hard, pencil. I dug them out yesterday afternoon to play with, not to do anything great. I have not used them in a year or two, and with that comes the need to re-learn what to do with them. I figured an imaginary landscape somewhere would be good territory for exploration, so in the Land of Something, I began.

The first thing I did was to used Golden Pastel Ground which I mixed with some fluid yellow ochre acrylic paint and water, thinning it to the consistency of cream. I applied 3 thin layers onto Canson XL oil / acrylic painting paper, letting it dry in between each layer. This give a sanded surface with a bit of grit, and it held up really well.

After the paper and ground were dried, I pulled out all my pastels. I have soft pastels by Rembrandt and Terry Ludwig; harder pastels called Nupastel, and some reputable pastel pencils by Derwent and Faber-Castell. The first layers were done with soft pastels to lay in the values. I used rubbing alcohol and a paint brush to establish values. The alcohol seals the pastel pigment and once dried the colors do not flake off.

I applied layer after layer after layer of soft pastels, blending as needed, and using a very fine mist spray bottle with alcohol in it to settle each layer. In the end, I used the Nupastels and the pastel pencils to see what they can and cannot do. When finished, I sealed the painting with more alcohol and used a hair dryer to hasten the drying.

Last time I did pastels I got frustrated, and it seemed everything I did got worse and worse! My own thoughts are I am more accomplished or skilled with colors and such now than I was a few years ago, so this may be why I feel this is a successful foray into a forgotten medium. I expect I will be carrying on with pastels as they are a lot like drawing and painting, messy and bright. I think I may attempt a building with the next painting.

Working with pastels produces a lot of dust. I wore a face mask and damp wiped my work area after I finished. If I continue to paint in pastels, I plan to get a good air purifier with a HEPA filter to keep the potential dust hazard to a minimum.

9 x 12 Canson XL oil / acrylic paper; Golden pastel ground with yellow ochre and water; Terry Ludwig and Rembrandt soft pastels with pastel pencils and Nupastel. Rubbing alcohol used to seal dust. (Now let’s see how it works as a final fixative!)

Greens Against the Sky – 1

Over the past two or three weeks – really, since the last posting – I have not had time to lift up a paint brush or pencil. It makes for a good break up to a point but when I look back, some of the stuff keeping away from watercolor and paint have been the less attractive necessities of life! Today I have finally settled a bit, enough to take the time out of the day to see if I could even focus on paint without creating mud.

Apparently I can!

Whenever I have not painted for a bit, I like to dive into something which is comfortable – landscapes – and makes me happy – brilliant greens against an intense sky. The American Southwest can provide it, as can spring in California, but today I went to Pixabay to look at pictures of Great Britain. I love their landscapes, especially the Dales and the South Downs, and anything along the coast. Here, living in dry California, such lushness always appeals to me.

This is certainly not my best work, but it is not my worst. The usual lack of depth dogs me except perhaps for the hilltop in the upper left below the sky. I do like the simplicity of my colors, though; it is too easy to do detail after detail after detail.

Anyway, I spent a few hours somewhere in England, and it feels pretty good.

Tracks Across the Fields

I do love the bleak look of winter. With watercolor, a limited palette of 3 or 4 colors can express so much. Admittedly I used more, but I usually like alizarin, ultramarine, burnt sienna, and Hooker’s green for the colder time of the year.

Following through on points for some of the classes I have been taking, I am working to simplify subject matter, colors, and lead the eye. I think I managed to do this here, leading through the fields to the houses on the hilly horizon. I tried to contrast warm and cool colors, with a bit of warm on the buildings with the hope it will draw the viewer in. I also used wet in wet and dry brush, working from general shapes to more specifics; light to dark in general.

In addition to the painting, I am trying to make myself do a preliminary drawing before I touch brush to paint to paper. I did this one today. Lesson – it is actually worth the time, and I have been a silly bunt not to take on this fine habit sooner!

Watercolor, 9×12 CP Extra White Fabriano Artistico 100% cotton paper.

Winter in Hill Country

I needed a change of pace – a way to relax – after yesterday’s very intense painting of buildings and people. It’s nice to visit familiar territory. But, I was not without goals. Here I worked on subtle gradations and color change in the sky; misty / soft trees in the horizon using moist paper to blur and indicate distance; a couple of buildings with subtle rooftops; snow. On Arches CP 140#, 9×12.

Road through the Hills

About six weeks ago I started this painting and then all the chaos of insurance and plan choices and lost mail brought most of my creative life to a screeching halt. It was emotionally exhausting in a lot of ways, but those details really are not important today. Instead, this painting is finished at last!

Details first: acrylic on gessoed 16×20 CP Arches 140# paper. Borders of paper taped down all the way. I probably spent about 10-12 hours on this painting.

There have been multiple iterations of this painting. In the original, a tree was in the right middle front foreground. That disappeared last night. Then the road, which disappeared dead center, was reworked and made visible through the trees this morning. The suggestions of vineyards in the background disappeared, too. Too many stripes – I was looking for a zebra.

To finish the painting, I decided to work in middle of the night last night, and from 10:30 pm to 2:30 a.m. I painted out nearly everything except the blobby middle that I knew was not what I wanted. My husband, who is no art aficionado, always has good advice on painting problems. He and I agreed on the issues. So, this afternoon, I spent a few hours working and reworking it until you see the finished result above.

I have not done a lot of painting in acrylics, but each painting I do brings new experiences. I still tend to be a dabber, but am working to think about how I move the brush more, such as long horizontal or vertical strokes, or suggestions of something with just a blob (not a dab!) of color. I need to work in acrylics more to build more confidence in my brushwork.

So, here you are, on a gravel road in the backcountry, enjoy vineyards and olive groves, somewhere in a Mediterranean country on a hot day in summer.