Frederick, Maryland Riverwalk - A painting challenge

 

"Frederick, Maryland Riverwalk" (pastel, 9x12 inches, $475 framed Buy here)

This urban scene was a double challenge; for two separate pastel societies' monthly challenges. One was to paint an urban scene. The other was to paint in the style of a favorite artist. I decided to do both at once!

 Well, since Monet was not known for his urban scenes, I chose this river city scene and was inspired by another favorite impressionist, Alfred Sisley. My photo reference was one I took in Frederick, Maryland on a family vacation years ago. I really liked the composition of the photo just as it was (makes my painting job easier!) and I loved the early evening twilight glow.

To help me catch the impressionist style of painting in such a small pastel (9x12) I used a heavily textured paper, Sabretooth, a very bumpy sanded pastel paper. No underpainting this time, just dry working on the white paper with lots of blending of base layers. It took me about 4 hours total work time.

View the reference photo, along with some progress pics and the inspirational Sisley painting, on my public Patreon post here!

 

Twilight Road

"Twilight Road" (pastel, 9x12 inches) $475

The one landscape I actually finished from Kim Casebeer's workshop a couple weeks ago. Watching her was a real treat! Her color shifts are so subtle and her skies are luscious. I learned a lot!

I'll be adding this one to my display at the Carriage House Gallery in Boerne TX, to help represent my work for our August show Celebrate Creative Diversity, along with the work of Linda Chalberg and Donald Darst. Reception is this Saturday, August 10, 2019. Read more about it here!

Hope to see you!

.

Road Sketch #33

"Road Sketch #33"  (pastel on Canson Mi-Tientes Touch, 6.5 x 11.5 inches) click here to bid

My last demo from the workshop in Marble Falls, TX. I had decided to do a landscape but had no more paper or boards of my own to work on, so someone handed me an odd-sized piece of black Canson Mi-Tientes Touch. I've seen this paper, and I think I have some somewhere, but had never used it before so it was an adventure. On first application it feels as though the pastel won't hold on very well, but in fact it holds very well! I probably could have layered up a lot more pastel than I did, but I'm used to working with light glazes.

I chose a twilight road scene for this black paper (which was actually more of a dark charcoal gray) so my main challenge here was keeping the values all low-key, in the mediums and darks. The tiniest bit of light yellow for the headlights of the oncoming truck, and medium-light gray for the road lines.

This painting is suitable for custom matting, and in fact would look quite nice in a simple black 12x18 inch frame with a medium off-gray mat, 6x11 opening. Or even double matting with a dark green or violet inner mat.