Some You Win, Some others ...

You lose, LOL.

Now after last weeks, what is wrong with this and why?

I think I could have painted this better in pastel, Or more likely, I was painting this as if I was using pastels. I should have left white space for the middle ground trees and foliage for example.

Also there is no real contrasts in tone, yes there is some but I have mixed up recession thru tonal contrast (the hills) with aerial perspective and colour recession. There are no shadows to speak of and the result is flat and uninteresting.

Lastly, I used a small brush for the last painting, I was using a pocket w/c set. I had to use the brush quickly and scrub/move the paint around. Here, I had decided to use tube colours and a larger brush. Maybe too large for the areas of the painting where some texture would have helped  create a feeling of detail.

I am going to try this same subject again and try to improve it based on the above comments. But I will also try to improve this painting by completing it with pastels. See if I can do something with it as a mixed media work.

Watch this space ...

A colourful sky, a pastel painting

Painting has been taking a back seat recently as I have been very busy and also decided to start my very first novel. But I still manage to get to my art group, once a week for a couple of hours so it is great that I can usually complete one of my landscapes in that time.

This one for instance, one which I really like and received some very good comments from my colleagues at the art group.

But painting it was more involved than it might appear.

Starting with an A4 sheet of black general purpose art paper (cheap!), I covered the paper with a layer of black pastel. Simple linear strokes with the side of a softish pastel stick (origin unknown). This was then blended all over using circular strokes with the tips of three fingers and then fixed using an inexpensive hair spray.

I repeated this procedure twice using a mid-blue pastel and then a dark violet pastel. This was the background.

The next step was to use a mid-brown, again on its side, to paint in the top of the horizon at the bottom of the painting. below this a dark green was wiped across the painting. These colours were blended where they overlapped, and then grass-like strokes were added at the extreme bottom in a lighter green and other colours.

Cloud shapes were the next step. A light and mid-violet were used to create the main shapes and then a red to top off these shapes. A mid-blue was then added to create texture around the clouds.

Next, a red-brown was used -on its side- to create the colouring on the horizon. This was blended in a single direction (up) using the side of the thumb to create the spiky appearance. More colours were added at the horizon to ground this colour. I am not sure what it represents, make your own mind up but it does help the composition.

And finally, some dark brown was added and blended along the lighter brown of the horizon.

Here is a shot of the original from a book :-

it is in Ron Ranson's Painting School Series, PASTELS by Diana Constance.

Mine is not meant to be a reproduction of the original, I always aim to create a  painting from a reference which inspired me without copying. 

Perhaps this is more involved than you thought after all.

Painting a pastel landscape from a watercolour

I have been a little lazy recently in terms of my painting, and looking over some old watercolours decided to try one or two of them in pastel. Should be easy! However watercolour has features very different from pastel in many respects and the feeling of a watercolour could be difficult to achieve.

So I set myself this little challenge. Take a watercolour and repeat it in pastel to create a painting with the same feel.

This was the first painting I would try:-

This had always been a favourite of mine and I felt that for the puposes of this challenge it would be ideal. The earth colours gave it a very definite autumnal feel. Also, the light background spoke of mists and early morning.

The image I actually used as a reference for the pastel was actually cropped, I don't kbnow why, to remove some of the area from each side. But never mind, here is the pastel:-

Not quite as much detail, especially in the foreground, but nevertheless I am quite pleased with the outcome of this experiment. I am of a mind to do it again using the full sized original and concentrate more on the foreground but I will try one or two others before I do that.

I feel that the feeling of the original watercolour has been captured, success!

Red Sky at Night, a pastel painting

My latest creation was completed last night at my regular art group meeting, I have to admit is was from an idea in an art magazine advert. I usually make far more changes to my work when I use another piece as a reference but most old masters have copied works by other old masters since time immemorial, and in a spirit of learning, I have painted my own version of this image.

The colours were the main atttraction for me, but the variation in the tints and shades within the large flat areas was something that is new to me. I know all about variation as a principle of composition but I mostly use texture to provide it. Here it is a use of a those differing colours that I have trie to understand and copy.

Here is a version of the painting as a work in progress:-

It is very nearly completed but lacks details. Also, I took the photo late at night in a room lit by ordinary light and did not use flash, so the colours are "wrong". A problem with not using the right light, photographers and artists will be familiar with this problem.

The completed work is show below:-

Having taken a photo in better light, the colours are much truer to the original, but still long way out. I am going to havae to take another in bright daylight before I start posting to places like Zazzle. I will also post the newer image here for comparison.

Note the additional details including the beansticks (support for climbing vegetables found in many UK gardens). More contrast in the sky and trees.

Watch out for the improved photograph soon.

A work in progress - a break with tradition.

I though I had finished this pastel painting and photographed it, loaded to my PC and then sat and looked at it. No it wasn't what I had intended at all.

What is wrong? Well the clouds are not like clouds, they look more like misplaced foliage and in the original photograph there was a vaulted appearance to the sky, I need to darken the top corners of the painting.

If you want to see the original by Robin (waterlily on Redgage), please be my guest; just pop over to the image titled heavenly.

You will see that it is not quite the same effect, I will be working on this again and will repost when I have completed it to my satisfaction. Check back to see when it is complete.

More Zazzle products with the same pastel painting - Moonlight

I posted my new painting in the last post, called "moonlight" and showed it on a stretched canvas available from Zazzle. I have now put it on a few more products of which here is a small sample.

Moonlight and tree poster by artyfax
Browse other Moonlight Posters

Moonlight Birthday card by artyfax
Design unique personalized note cards from zazzle.com.

Moonlight and tree postcard by artyfax
View more Artyfax Postcards

Moonlight and tree pillow by artyfax
See more Pastel Pillows

I would usually not include so many examples of products but I am very pleased with this painting and have started designing many products using the image. You can of course see a much larger image of this painting on my flickr account.

Although it is typical of the way I use pastels to create texture in the painting, in the large image you can actually see the texture as the fixing agent has dried and shrunk if you look carefully. Almost like a crackle paint finish. This in itself is not typical and I put it down to the paticular ground I have used for this painting. I am not careful about the board that I use, often using any old card that happens my way. Sometimes these can be around for a very long time and I forget where they come from. Maybe this is not a good approach?