It’s been several months since our visit to Colorado but I am still churning out Colorado themed artwork. Part of that is because it’s beautiful scenery. Part of that is because it’s pretty easy subject matter. Either way, I’ve had fun deviating from my typical Missouri.
Here is a larger piece I’ve been working on for the last couple months. With it being 20″x27″, it’s by far the largest pastel piece I’ve completed. It was a long process the got derailed a few times but in the end I am pretty happy with it. If you have followed my artwork you may recognize this as a second attempt at a previous image. I just really like the image that I was basing this work from so I decided to give it another shot in a larger size.
I started with a large sized sheet of Art Spectrum Colorfix pastel paper. I’ve tried a few different pastel papers and this is by far my favorite, specifically the Terra Cotta color I used here. Having the orange color in the background gives the finished product a bit of a subtle warm hue where small amounts of the background show through. Really, I like painting over any color except white.
Here are a few progress photos and the finished product:
I sketched in the initial shapes with a pencil and then used black and blue prismacolor hard pastels to start filling in some background color. Then I wash it with a brush dipped in turpentine to blend and fix it slightly to the paper.
Next I filled in the clouds, and started on the distant mountain range. I use my finger to smudge the clouds and make them look soft.
I was feeling good about the sky and mountains, but when I started on the meadow it quickly turned sour. Something with the grass just really looked odd and budged me.
I ended up using a wet towel and smearing the entire meadown into a beige pile of muck, then made a second, less detailed pass at the meadow, which turned out much better.
Here I am with the finished piece after I have matted and framed it.
