"after the rain"

"after the rain" 12"x16" pastel on Uart 500

We have had a lot of rainy days these last couple weeks….. I guess they are April showers! Finally we had a break in the rain. I went out in my courtyard to enjoy the moments of sun and there was a beautiful sunset!

my reference photo

The photo is not great, but the horizon was filled with a soft pink and yellow glow reflecting on the wet trees. I had to paint it! I chose to do a watercolor underpainting because I wanted to get those soft colors on my paper that I saw.

watercolor underpainting

I had to let that sit and dry so I worked on picking out my pastel colors to use in the painting. I ended up using mostly Terry Ludwig pastels from the Liz Haywood Sullivan skies and water set. I worked on this painting for 2 days which is longer than I usually do, but I had this image in my head that I needed to get on the paper right!.

The next morning when I went out to take my Siberian Husky for his walk , the sunrise was as beautiful, with the last of the rain clouds blowing through. So…. more to follow on painting the sky!