composition

"shades of green" 11.5x15.5" on Sennelier LaCarte  $125

I worked on this painting most of yesterday and again this morning. I had posted it on my FB page, but something was not right with it. Here is the original post…..

original post

Something bothered me about the composition, so I let it sit over night and went back to my studio in the morning. There it was….. the problem…… the red leaf branch…… it was like a dagger in my painting!

reference photo

Here is my reference photo. It's from one of my trips to Gibbs Garden. I thought I did a decent job of composing the photo. I felt like I could take the viewer into the scene that I saw. The scene was very green and I knew I would have to add some compliments to the green to make the painting pop. But I literally copied in that branch of red leaves and it did not work! So I went back to the painting and brushed out some of the branch and added some more compliments to balance the branch of red leaves. 

A word about the paper I used…. the more I use the Sennelier paper, the more I like it. It already comes in colors, so I don't have to do an underpainting. It also takes quite a few layers of pastel with out spraying  a fixative. It gives the pastel a soft quality. I used mostly Terry Ludwig greens and Great American Richard McKinley landscape pastels

I hope you enjoy my painting!