Angel

“Angel” (pastel, 10x8 inches) $350 unframed for a limited time, or $430 framed.

My opening demo from last weekend’s workshop in Virginia. I had originally planned this little heifer as a 4x6, but decided to draw her larger for better visibility in the classroom.
During her painting process, I found myself making the shadowed side of her face too light for my chosen background, because of the dark the background in the photo making that shadow look far brighter. So I wiped that off on Sunday and tweaked the contrasts to better suit the lighter background.

See progress shots below:

Here, the blue-ish shadowed side of the face had gotten too light, and was blending in to the background...  a face is not usually where one would like to have a “lost edge”!

So, my final tweaks involved wiping off the too-light blues and keeping them slightly darker when re-painting. Combined with some subtle lightening of the background blues...  Voila!

Tomorrow starts my last workshop of this summer trip, at Painted Views Ranch in Florence TX. So the flow of new paintings will continue for the next few days! Monday I’ll be home and back to the grind of normal life...