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Another pastel painter Michael Chesley Johnson has this idea about only using twelve colours (a warm and a cool of the primaries and secondaries) plus black and white, a total of 14 sticks. As I maintain that a huge palette isn't needed, I took him up on the challenge.

I chose a scene from the Old Town of Stockholm, Sweden. This is the 'backyard' of the cathedral, and the building hited at in the opening of the wall is the royal palace. The Old Town, Gamla Stan,

As I don't have the same brand, I picked colours that were similar. I made three changes:
1) I chose charcoal instead of a black stick, because it is a softer and warmer black that goes extremely well with pastels, and I can feather an area slightly darker.
2) I chose a lighter value warm blue, so it could be used for the sky and for shaping volume in shadowed floliage, and work as a cooling agent for foliage in light.
3) My 'white' is a warm peachy yellowy almost white, as I would use it mostly in sunlit areas.

Then, I found out that if I wanted to darken a fairly light area, it worked really well to smear some pastel on my finger and gently blend it in, while using a darker pastel directly on the painting tended to get too 'brutal' for the very small amounts of pigments needed for darkening the lights.

A reason for the "finger painting" is that the sticks I chose are much softer than Michael's, and thus release more pigment.

Mostly I used colour to darken colour, but the charcoal is definitely in the sketch. I put black into the very first layer, where I needed the deeper darks. As I want the luminosity of colour, I prefer to put colour over black when possible, rather than mix black into colour.

Same goes for lightening darks with white. I used the finger trick, but mostly I lightened with lighter colour. In order to lighten an orange, I can only choose a yellow or a white to do the job. And I know the white will also cool the area, and the yellow will also brigthen (in addition to lightening) so depending on what I need/want, I choose one of them.

Somebody asked me if I was happy with the painting. Yes, I am. This limited palette worked much better than I thought it would. With harder sticks than Unisons, it would be even easier to modify the colours.

Recently, I happened to fall and break the wrist of my right hand, the hand I use. These kinds of injuries heal rather slowly, so I really got bored with just sitting and waiting. At the same time, there was (is) an ongoing challenge in the forum of the Pastel Guild of Europe -- how to paint green landscapes. Several of us live in Northern Europe (north of the Alps), and our landscapes are as green as Ireland's. It is nice to be outdoors in summer, but for some reason green paintings do not work all that well. It seems like we see them as too green, even if they're very faithful copies of the green stuff outside.

 

So together we are working on a solution on How To Paint Green.

 

One solution is to make an underpainting in other colours, which then will peek through the greens on top of them. Another solution is to temper the greens with other colours on top of them. (The result will be different.)

 

I chose to paint what was an all-green scene using no green pigment whatsoever. There is an impression of green here and there, and that is an optical mix of blue and yellow. This is going back to the basics, using methods the impressionists and the pointillists experimented with.

 

And, I painted it with my left hand, which lead to a loser handling of strokes. There was no way I could fuss and give in to my perfectionist tendencies. I learned (again) that a loose handling is quite enough and convincing. The right hand has too much dexterity and control. I really recommend painting a whole painting using only the 'wrong' hand, it opens up one's mind. Yes, it does feel awkward. Yes, there is a huge temptation to switch hands. If you persist, you will discover new things, learn new things -- get out of the groove. A landscape is rather perfect for the experiment, as nobody cares if a tree isn't portrait like.

 

If I may say so myself, I really like the result. It is amazing how more convincing the image is when there is no green in it. One can probably put in a bit green at the edges between light and shadow, in order to enhance the illusion of green, and I'll try that next time.

 

Compare with this which I painted outdoors, on location:

 

I really tried to match the greens (on top of an underpainting where there was no green). The sunlight was rather orange, as it was painted after dinner, and finished at about 8:30 pm (20:30). There were all kinds of greens, from yellow-green over blue-green, to violet-green. It is a faithful rendering of what my eyes really saw, and in that respect it was a success.

 

Green is one of my favourite colours, but even I feel that this sketch gives an impression of being slightly too green as it hangs on my wall. The painting of Birches somehow looks more 'natural', although it in reality is more 'contrived', more 'forced' by the avoidance of green pigment.

 

In a way, one can claim that painting is the ability to tell the truth via a 'lie'. If no greens, or very little of them, tells the story of a place in nature in a better way than green pigments do, then the artist will do well by 'fibbing' a bit, using the knowledge and skill they have.

 

And when it comes to preferences, we can be absolutely convinced of the fact that some people will prefer the no-green painting, and others will love the all-green painting. We are all different, like different things, and that is so very right.

 

 

 

After a very busy time with classes, exhibition, and commissions, I could try out my investment in a small set of the fabled Henri Roche pastel, made by La Maison du Pastel in Paris, France. Handmade with methods that are centuries old, these are the most luxurious pastels that exist. It is the pastel brand used by Degas, Monet, Rosabla Carriera, and other famous old masters.

 

After carefully selecting 36 pastels in mainly 3 values (3, 5, 7), plus a couple of darks and some near whites, I eagerly waited for the postman to bring it. Hovering by the window, waiting for him, I rushed out and grabbed it from his hands before he could drop it in the box.

 

When opening the parcel, I found several neat cardboard boxes with the cool logo of Henri Roché...

 

 

... and inside them were glorious colours!

 

The "candy boxes" sat for a while, being just pretty, while I was working with business related things. Finally I found some free time to paint "Old Town Glow (Stockholm)". In order to have a greater variation of strokes, I  broke off (gasp!) about a third from the long sticks. (Below: some sticks photograph as if the colours were similar. In reality, they are different, except the lemon yellow which is a duplicate.)

 

 

  During my earlier experiments with a sample set, I had made a discovery: the Henri Roché pastels respond very well to a high quality fixative, which allows for multiple layering on what I call plain pastel paper. This pastel, the Henri Roché, is what allowd Degas to create his fantastic shimmering paintings. (See my article for The Pastel Scribbler on discovering Dega's "secret" method, as I reviewed the Roché pastel.)

 

Here is a closeup showing the rough texture of a Degas painting (left), and a detail from my own (right), with a similar texture:

 

 

This typical texture can only be had when fixating between layers. I'm talking about a light fixation, not a drenching of the pastel. If a firmer layer is needed, do spray fixative in a light application, let it dry completely, repeat as many times as needed. I find that about two light applications is usually sufficient.

 

What this technique does is that it allows you to layer just about any colour on top of any other, without mixing them. Degas has let an olivy green and a rosy pink layer into each other, and while the optical mixing does show a certain greyness, both colours are vibrant as they mingle in the eye. Blending these would have resulted in a much duller grey.

 

Can you do that with other brands of pastels? Not as well, in my opinion. In other brands, the pastel dust tends to melt and darken much more, and fuse. The Roché pastel marks may darken a hair depending on if there is a darker colour underneath, but the marks keep their individuality and vibrancy.

 

I still explore the Henri Roché pastels, as they behave differently from other pastels. I will try them on other papers, too, as for example Ingres. In this painting, I applied light scumbling strokes, while the strokes in the sketches in the article were more impressionistic.

 

Larger version of Old Town Glow (Stockholm) is found here.

Do you artists paint what your loved ones suggest you paint? My husband has been (repeatedly) suggesting I paint some of the statues of Stockholm. They're landmarks, well known, and people like them, he said. To which I replied "dark blobs against the sky nobody looks at, hopeless to stand there and paint, or horrible camera distortion in a photo". 

 

But one sunny late winter Sunday we were strolling in the city, lapping sunshine to revive us after the dark winter months, and I happened to see one of the statues at this angle I really liked. Although the sunshine was very warm in colour, it reflected so much that the shadows also were on the warmish side. (Yellow buildings help create warmth, too.) So, after a couple of years of resisting, I took a photo in order to paint it. When viewing the photo at home, I discovered to my delight that there was a person leaning against one of the plinths, which could be tied into the composition with the statues. Sometimes I like to put in a humorous touch.

 

The rider of the horse is one of Sweden's kings, Gustavus Adolphus, who died as a result of a wound acquired in a battel in 1632 which is indicated by the raised leg of the horse. Had he died on the battle field, the horse would be rearing. Four hooves firmly planted shows that the rider died elsewhere of other causes, like peacefully in bed.

 

I did start a blog post about this painting a month ago, and changed my mind and wrote it as a demonstration for The Pastel Scribbler, the newsletter of the Pastel Guild of Europe. It has now issued, so if you are interested in the demo showing four stages and talking about simplifying a complexe scene, please click here and scroll down to page 9.

 

Here, I will point out some things not mentioned in the demo article, and go into more depth about edges, as my painting is one of the illustrations for the May Spotlight in the Pastel Forum of WetCanvas.

 

In drawing, we learn to delineate edges. When painting, lines can be used as edges (as van Gogh and as Sandro Botticelli did with much success), but it is not the only way to go about it. A paintings can be "weaved" into a cohesive whole by how we manipulate the edges. This is how our eyes see. In fact, we do not see the objects we look at at all -- we see the light reflecting off of these objects. Gazillions of photons bouncing around like demented pinballs. It is a complete weave of light. Weaker light in the shadows, and brighter light where the sun shines.

 

Eye vs Camera

 

We also see a three dimensional image, due to our stereoscopic vision (two eyes, slightly apart, in the front of the head). We can literally feel distance, as the muscles of the eyes which control the thickness of the lens contract and expand. Test this sensation by looking at something close up, for example a fingertip in front of your face, and then remove the finger and focus on something that is more than 13 yards or meters away. The sensation is very clear.

 

The camera, on the other hand, has one "eye" only (so far, 3D cameras are being developed) and just as our vision loses sense of dept if we look with only one eye, so does the camera. Photos turn flat, compared to how we see.

 

The area of the visual field which can be in sharp focus in our eyes is quite small. Normally, we do not think about it, as we move our gaze and the next focus will be as sharp as the first one was (but no longer is when we're not looking directly at it). Try this: look at a corner of your computer screen, and without moving your eyes, try to read this text.

 

The camera shows everything in a photo in focus. I know, this statement should be elaborated, as photography is an art that can bypass this, but for the scope of this post, it is sufficient to say that snapshots are very flat and in sharp focus. They are definitely not how the eyes see.

 

So, if we want to paint an illusion of how the eye sees, we need to use some tricks of the painter's trade. Then we can make good use of a photo as a reference, especially if we have a good solid base of having done many studies outdoors so we know well what the differences are. Don't take my word on it, test it! Take a photo of a scene, print it out, go back to the place with the photo in hand and compare what you see and what the camera sees.

 

Tricks of the Trade

 

In the below detail picture, you can see a number of them that are useful for the area where you want the viewer to focus:

- Sharper edges vs softer edges/broken edges/lost edges

- Brighter colours vs duller

- Higher value contrast vs lower or no contrast

 

 

Lines in the detail (above):

Most are created by a mass of colour meeting another mass, as in the brown foundation of the statue group. The 90 degree angle between the lit part facing left, and the shadow part facing towards you is a meeting of different colours and values, but it is not a drawn line showing the edge. While on the plinth holding the chain, you see a variety of edges. Some are soft, where a colour merges softly into antoher, and they are usually on the same plane. The left one has a softer transition between its shadow side and the foundation, especially in the upper part. That line becomes broken, as it is clearer at the bottom, and less clear at the upper part, and high contrast at the top. But where that plinth turns 90 degrees, two distinct lines add to the sharpness of the corner jutting towards us: one orange-yellow on the lit side, and one red on the shadow side. This is a trick often used by some of the Impressionists, as warm colours come forward.

 

The flowerpot has one distinct sharp edge to the left, and a more blurred and hinted edge to the left. The cast shadow of the pot is a line of a transitional colour. It is sharper near the pot, and blurs with distance (not visible in the detail). it is a colour which is warmer than the blue shadow, and darker than the lit ground. This exsists in reality, and is caused by the red and orange light having longer wavelengths than blues and violets.

 

While the statues have more indistinct or firm edges, as they are rounded shapes, three dimensional. A sharp edge comes forward, and lost, diffused, and blurred edges recede and help turn the form.

 

Skyline

 

As a sky is a lightsource, more tricks have to be used to handle lines and outlines so nothing is too harshly silhouetted. The edge of the cloud works as a lead-in (marked in red), but it is understated, with soft broken lines, and it becomes diffused before reaching the roof, indicating it goes behind it. To lessen the contrast, most rooftops have blue sky adjacent to them, as a blue sky is darker than a white cloud. The raised  center part of the roof is slightly sharper, as it is an identifier of the building, but the contrast is not high, and the colours are slightly darker versions of the sky colours, so they harmonize. While the slanting part of the roof has gotten an outline which tends toward broken, lost, diffused, and similarity of colour -- all to push it back and make it insignificant.

 

 

Likewise, some effort has been made to lessen the contrast of the edges of the dark statue against the white cloud. This softens the line and turns the form. A medium blue acts as a transitional colour there. Note that the two legs of the horse which are closer to us have drawn sharp yellow lines indicating where the sun hits them, while the other two legs which actually are as lit have been left without the yellow, in order to recede in space.

 

Yet another edge exists, one that is not so well known. It is very efficient for creating a special glow in a painting. It is the actual light reflecting off an object which comes visible against a dark background. This is often called Halation. The detail below is from my painting Orchid and Chopsticks. Look at the picture of the whole painting to see how this glow lights up the whole painting, it is quite magical.

 

 

The artist is the absolute ruler of her or his world, and can use whatever means they want to make an illusion work. Edge control is a powerful tool to wield in order to achieve a believable illusion of depth and form.

 

 

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See a larger version of the whole pastel painting Gustav Adolfs Torg (or Gustvus Adolphu's Square in English) in the Works section of the website.

Terry Miura, an Amercian artist specializing in streetscenes has invited other artists to enter a visual dialogue with him. On his blog he posted a photo of a street, and challenged his readers to paint it and to simplify the scene.

 

The modern cityscape has not been on my painting menu, so I happily grabbed a chance to learn from a master of the genre. Terry gave advice on how to simplify, and much more.

 

When studying the photo Terry provided,  I had to make several decisions: format (landscape or portrait),  how to crop, where to place the area of interest, and finding the abstract shapes that would be interesting. I also needed movement in the painting.

 

The idea I decided on looked something like this:

 

Above: Inspired by the Westernized Japanese concept of Notan (how to shape the lights, darks, and midtones abstractly), I saw that this crop worked so well I didn't have to re-design the photo (thank you Terry for a great reference shot).  It had three different lead-ins taking the viewer to the tower in a meandering way. Yes, I'd chosen the tower as one of the areas of interest. Possibly, I should have cropped even closer, and not been so charmed by the line of the rooftops leading to the proud tower. The cars at the foreground lead to those in the background, and I kept the cars on the right for the sake of balance, but cropped them to thirds to show they're not significant. The trees lining the street would give a line that moved organically, contrasting to the man-made elements of the other two lines.

 

I liked the sense of depth, and the distant mountains (hills?) caught my fancy, as there are none where I live.

 

Now, I'm not a tonalist, as I work mainly with colour, but values are important to me. I work in soft pastel, on a sanded paper. Size is 12x9" (A4).

 

I simplified the scene further, for the underpainting:

 

In the underpainting, it is already clear what the scene will be, and the colours are very exaggerated, according to the principle that any colour I add will dull what is already there.

 

Next, in stage 2, I start to refine the colours, to something more approximating 'reality'. I work with pure colours:

 

 

In stage 3, I put in variations and variegations:

 

The reason I put in the foliage in stage 3 is that it will be a bit more integrated with the buildings. What I want very clearly visible, I put in from the start, and that which should be a bit more subdued comes in stage 3. Not that the green stuff looks subdued in the photo... But it had been way more 'loud' if I had created a separate mass for it in stage one.

 

Stage 4 completes the painting, Traffic:

 

 

 

All I had to do was to add a few marks here and there to suggest 'detail', and some handling of edges. The distant cars were drawn in. Any imbalance was corrected. The finished paintings has been colour corrected in the computer, while the three first stages are straight from the camera. As I upload this, I see I need to add some variations to the distant cars, as they're too monochrome.

 

This was way out of my comfort zone (which really is still-lifes, although I've done a lot of rural landscapes). By stretching ourselves, we grow as artists, and the ole comfy zone gets larger. Painting unfamiliar scenes allow me to be more free in reshaping them (although I didn't find it necessary in this case).

 

As I write this, Terry has posted some of the paintings that are coming to him. Beautiful work, from all over the world. You can see them in his blog, in First Contributions Are In, and Cityscape Challenge: The Next Batch.

 

I will add more links as they come, so watch this space!

 

Added links: Simplify! Some More! (where mine is, together with a bunch of other pastellists! and fine artists.)

More Cityscapes!

And now Terry has collected all contributions in a gallery on his website.

 

Thank you Terry for a delightful challenge!

 

I have not blogged for months, and the good news is that today all people in my immediate family are hale and well. I have painted, even painted en plein air on the streets and parks of my hometown, Stockholm, Sweden.

 

There is a whole island which once was a royal hunting ground, called Djurgården. The zoo Skansen and the amusement park Gröna Lund are on this island, and so is the 17th century ship Vasa. It is a very popular recreational area.

 

Many years ago, one king decided to open the park for visitors, and put up a gate. This gate is still preserved, even though it has been moved several times, the latest to a place very close to where it was once raised. It has been freshened up, and this landmark is called The Blue Gate. Which it is. Vividly. A pure bright cobalt blue, which made a beautiful contrast to the summer foliage of an urban landscape. When nature is solidly green, I prefer to paint in structures that are man-made, to supply variety and interest. And when the structure has grace and beauty of its own, it is perfect.

 

Look at the larger picture of the impressionist painting The Blue Gate (Blå Porten) on my website.

The Burnt Lot II (Swedish: Brända Tomten II) is the larger painting I have made of this charming spot. Snipping from the Wikipedia article:

The Burnt Lot "is a small, triangular public square in Gamla stan, the old town in central Stockholm, Sweden.

"A few benches under a chestnut tree, the ivy hanging from the surrounding façades makes the space a lush, relaxed spot. During summers, a network of storytellers gather around the benches to tell their stories both to enthusiasts and passers-by.A building (...) destroyed by fire in 1728, was apparently not rebuilt for a few decades, which gave first the lot and then the open space their names. The turning radius of horse-drawn vehicles made open spaces necessary..."

It has stayed as an open space since, now being a small oasis in the midst of the Old Town.

The colours of the houses enchant me, and after a summer of painting predominately green and blue paintings, both outdoors and indoors, I really needed some rusts and golds, to get variety! The graceful curve of the ivy is in small ways repeated all through the painting, both clearly, and in some cases well hidden but still influencing the structure of the painting.

(Now, how can a square be triangular? :-)

Larger image of artwork on my site.

This painting started 'life' as a Plein Air study, and this is the studio version of it. It is a place I like to visit, quite near to my home. A narrow sound (or strait) between two islands in the Stockholm archipelago, a lovely spot that is also the place of a famous battle.

The Battle of Stäket 1719

 (Adapted from Wikipedia.) Russia sent a large Baltic fleet with orders to pillage and harass the eastern Swedish seaboard. The Russian fleet proceeded burning cities and farmsteads.

The Russian admiral Apraxin had already investigated Baggensstäket, "the backdoor to Stockholm" (a narrow sound) as a way to reach the capital city without passing the fortress.

On August 10, Russian units were spotted in the archipelago. If they could pass through Baggenstäket it would be possible to reach the capital while completely out of reach of the cannon of Vaxholm.

On the morning of August 13, Russian galleys had been spotted at the entrance to the passage. The closest large Swedish army unit, the 800-man Södermanlands regemente, was alerted and force marched 19 kilometers to meet the enemy. A small force was sent ahead to protect the arrival of the rest of the regiment. After a rapid march through rocky and densly forested terrain under a hot summer sun, they  reached Baggenstäket before 7pm without encountering any fire. However the Russians by then had disembarked their forces, on both sides of the channel's eastern entrance. (Right behind us in the painting.) The Swedish forces arrived, and battle was engaged.

After two hours of confused fighting the battle was over, and the Russian solidiers retreated into their landing craft.

This "minor victory", as it is called, may have been major in the respect that the capital was not taken by the Russians. Swedes speak Swedish, not Russian, thanks to the valiant and heavily outnumbered forces beating the Russians. It is quite possible the pile of stones in the painting were used to sink the ships that blocked the straits.

Today, the spot is nearly as rural and idyllic as in the 18^th century.The nursery garden belonging to the near manor has a cafe with a view, children swim here, adults picknick or hop into a little boat, heading for the Baltic Sea.

See a larger image of the painting in the Landscape section of the site.

Taking a walk in the park surrounding a manor, (Tyresö slott near Stockholm, Sweden) during one of the few sunny days in this unusually cold and snowy winter, I came upon this cottage, nestled in comfortably by snow and trees. While not a perfect scene, I saw some potentialities for a painting, and took some pictures.

Reference image:



Now, this is far from a perfect ref, so let's see what can be done with it. I really didn't like the straight dark band of distant land crossing the picture from left to right, the shape is quite boring, and separates the picture in two halves. I started to play with it in the small format of Notan, where I worked out how to place the darks and the lights, finding good relationships and interesting shapes. The first notan in top left is just an exploration of the actual image:



I simplify the Notan progressively, and in the middle row, rightmost picture, I'm starting to find what feels right. I still have to find a way to anchor the darker shapes to either the top or the bottom of the picture. I try bottom first, and that works fine. The notan marked with an arrow is the one I choose as a basis for the painting.

Next the 'cartoon drawing' was made on the artist's quality sandpaper, which was then blocked in with the underpainting. Follow the progress here:


The painting took over, and decided it wanted a stream instead of a road, in stage 2. Evaluating the image, I found the stream lead too quickly to the house in a boring straight line, so before continuing, I changed the shape of the banks, and worked a bit further on the background copse of winterbare trees. In stage 3, I have decided that the foreground trees need a softer approach than bare branches would be, so I add dried and browned clusters of leaves. Only in stage four do I scumble nearly white pastels over the snow, to give the coolness and whiteness of snow.

I've made an effort to keep the simple structure from the Notan, and here is how the finished painting in black and white looks side by side with the Notan:



Quite close, although I instituted a row of lower bushes to the mid left, to provide more depth in the painting.

Now, this is a fairly large painting, and details vanish when shrunk to such a small picture as seen on your computer screen. This detail shows how the blue of the sky is actually woven together with not only blues, but also greens and purples. This weaving is part of why my paintings can be called Impressionist:



When comparing with the largest picture of the painting, can you find from which part of the sky this closeup is taken?

Dear readers, here is one of the paintings you could read about in my early February (2010) newsletter. The changes have been made, and it is finished. This is one of the main bridges in Stockholm, Sweden, connecting the northern parts of the city with the southern parts spanning the Lake Mälaren which bisects Stockholm.

I was attracted to the light (no surprise there!) as it painted parts of the bridge in gold, making the struts resemble a giant harp vibrating a melody of sparkling dripping light.

In the below composite image, I show how it grew forth, from a rough underpainting where the major masses were blocked in, to the finished painting. Paper is ArtSpectrum Colourfix, and pastels are mostly Unisons, with a finishing highlight or two of Schmincke:



Click here to see a large version of the painting.

Having spent 3 weeks on exhibiting, writing, and other 'stuff', both art-related and not, I could no longer hold back the urge to paint.

The short and oh-so-glorious time when the leaves blazes in the landscape, a country road, wind rustling the leaves, the sun golden and still warm on your cheek. Just a few days later, the leaves will have blown off, the sky be cloudy, but this golden moment captured in sparkling pastel will stay forever and warm the heart.

See a larger version of the painting by clicking here.

Reference photo courtesy of Tatiana Myers.

The title of this painting is from an Simon & Garfunkle song, the one that makes you feel grooooo-vy. Coming back into the studio after a break, I thought "Hello Lamppost", and then the song looped inside my skull for three whole days. The location is in my home town, Stockholm, in Sweden. 

This painting, With a View, is painted with the relatively new type of super soft pastel that doesn't come as a stick, but in a pan, looking much like a large eyeshadow pan. It is developed by an artist, and you can read more about them at the PanPastel site.

The medieval 'kernel' of Stockholm -- the Old Town -- also called The City Between Bridges, is on a rather small island controlling the entrance to lake Mälaren. The modern Stockholm is built on the shores north and south of the Old Town, as the city has sprawled since the 1200s. This street, Storkyrkobrinken, is one of the oldest, and it leads to the Luteran cathedral and the Royal Palace, which are right behind us as we look down the sloping street. Many of the beautiful old buildings are ochre, orange, earth red, and other colours, partially why I (local patriot!) regard Stockholm as one of the most beautiful cities in Europe.

This painting was supposed to be a sketch... but I found myself mesmerized by trying to capture the shimmer of the water, and then I had to bring the rest of the painting up to nearly the same degree of finish, and I had a painting. Originally simply called 'Gondolier', but, with the main focus on the water, I simply had to change the name.

A hot hazy summer day. The coolest place to be is in or on the water, so you stroll down to the boathouse to take your canoe and lazily glide over the surface of the pond, making no haste, as you have long vacations that just started. And you almost fall azzzzzleep....

Can you feel the calm clear salty air, smell a whiff of sea-weed, as you're going down to the little boat to row out and fish in the magic bright night of the midnight sun above the arctic circle? 

A quick sketch, the last painting I did for my upcoming show this weekend. I like to include a few studies and sketches in every show, and they go for a much lower amount than the full paintings do. Often a sketch is more spontaneous and shows the process of the artist's thinking, and of testing and experimenting, and can therefore become valuable records of an artist's progress in the future. So even if they are not as carefully planned and painted as a full painting, and may contain errors, the certainly qualify as "affordable art", and if both I and the collector are lucky, it will become precious.

I also include sketches as prelimnary studies displayed together with the painting, if a painting grew out of a sketch. I sell them either separately, or together for a package price. The package is a very nice thing for the collector, who can choose to hang them together and have a cool conversational piece. Or maybe hang the painting at home, and take the sketch to their office, or give the sketch as a present. That is definitely more value for the money, and I like to give that.

This is a landscape if found really exciting to paint. It is almost like a great outdoors hall, with the steep near vertical cliffs, and the smooth 'floor' of the water. It was also a challenge to make grey cliffs out of the bright colours of my pastel sticks. No actual grey has been used, only prismatic colours.

But, colour isn't all, not even to me. First, there is Design. I made a large number of Notans (really small thumbnail sketches) to map out the darks and the lights. I'm continuing the study of Notan, as it is a very efficient tool.



I know they look just like a jumble of spots, but if you look closely, you can see that I've used 4 values (paper, light grey, mid grey, black) to test different ideas. The big dark cliff has been extended upwards, or cropped. The very bg cliff has been very light, or mid grey. All cliffs have gotten different heights in different combinations. There's been more or less sky visible, and as the sky was an arrow-shape, I decided early on to let the lighted part of the cliff that vanishes in distance have lost edges with the sky, so the arrow would point to the area of interest, which is where the river bends around the cliff. Tricky thing was to try to subdue the fg brightly lit cliff on the right, and the dark to the left.

I've tried to make the masses of value connect, or at least point to each other (as with the darkest darks). There is a flow of lighter and midvalue from sky to left side of the river (vaguely an s-shape), bridged by the exclamaition mark ! of the far away lit cliff.

Those 30-seconds studies led to this underpainting:



As I was working on Fisher 400 artist's sandpaper, I could layer a lot, and there is no need for a fixative.

The rather 'wild' colours of the underpainting get subdued as I layer on them, but they are what sets the quantity of light, and that is kept through the whole painting process.

See a larger version of the finished painting here.

In this painting I've explored what a fairly large grey area does to enhance the glow of light. I also worked on the composition, to put the rusty old truck in a harmonic spot that is visually interesting.

I'm heading towards including more evidence of human activity in my landscapes. I figure there are signs of bovine or equinine activity too, as the yellowed grass is cropped short. But what does a city-girl know about agriculture... it could be mown and harvested, too. What caught me was the distinct shapes and the beautiful autumnal colours.

Charlie