my process for doing a pastel painting

"meadow of gold" 12"x16" pastel on Uart 500  $125

Third in my series of autumn weed paintings. I thought I would talk about my process for my paintings.  First - I have to be connected and excited about the subject matter - Right now I'm in love with the yellows of the goldenrod flower! I usually take several photos of the same area and then chose one or two for reference. 

I print off a black and white version because it really helps me to see the values and not focus on the local color. From this I do a thumbnail drawing using no more than four values and make notes about the light quality and things I remember from being there. Next is the hard part for me!!! I have so much to learn about using color - I pick out the pastel sticks I will use for the painting. Starting with the dark values , then the lights values (usually the sky) and then I fill in with the middle values as I begin to work on the painting. Last come the accent and spice colors. The scene is predominately green, so I pull out my boxes of Terry Ludwig greens (you can see which ones I use) and then pull the other colors from my working box. I keep my pallet to no more than 15-20 sticks.

Terry Luwig greens(warm and cool)

darks, lights , some mid values and spice

I'm loving the ArtGraff water soluble chalks for underpainting. I do a simple drawing of the basic shapes from my thumbnail  and rub the chalk on the darkest value areas in the painting. From there I  take a paint brush with water to blend it. Remember you don't need very much!

underpainting with ArtGraff

Next comes the pastel! I start by lightly layering in my darkest values, next lights and finally the middle values. From here I continue layering to build the shapes. Sometimes I use a workable fixative spray so the layers don't blend too much. The whole time I work on the painting , I step back and evaluate. Finally come the accents or "spices" as Karen Margulis calls them!

I took my time with this painting, spending 2 days on it. I'm still trying to absorb and apply all that I learned on my recent 3 day workshop with Karen Margulis and Marsha Savage. The more I paint, the more I grow!

If you would like to follow along with my art and art related topics, please click "like" on my art page on FB  -  Bonnie Morgan Hyde fine art. 

"golden"

"golden" 12"x16" pastel on Uart 500  $125

I was so inspired by a recent 3 day plein air workshop in Blue Ridge GA team taught by Karen Margulis and Marsha Savage! It rained 2 out of 3 days, but Karen and Marsha made up for it with a wealth of info and demos.  I was truly blessed for the weekend being surrounded by a talented group of artists. I was excited to get back home and try what I had learned. We are not quite in full autumn color here in GA, but the golden rod, grasses and other autumn flowering weeds are in full bloom. Unfortunately I am allergic to those weeds , but I couldn't resist going for a walk along the Chattahoochee River to scout out some ideas. Oh how I wanted to sit there and paint plein air! SNEEZE SNEEZE!!! So I headed home to my studio with a bunch of great photos and images fresh in my mind!

I was introduced to a new product for toning paper

It comes in six colors. I chose to tone my Uart 500 paper for the start of my series of autumn weed paintings. For the first painting, "sitting in the grasses", I chose the dark brown and toned the paper making it darker in the areas of darkest value.

You just take the block and rub it on the paper and blend with water and a brush. You don't need much, the pigment is rich. I did the same thing with the underpainting for the second painting, "golden" and chose sanguine.

You can see my line drawing here blocking in the big simple shapes of the painting. I tried to let the underpainting show through the pastel. There is so much you can do with these water soluble blocks, even drawing with them. I can't wait to experiment more!

"sitting in the weeds" 8"x10" on Uart 500  $60