Day 31: Red Barn

January 31, 2012

Red Barn, a soft pastel on 9.5x9.5 slate gray PastelMat.

1. I scumbled in all of the primary shapes with NuPastels.

2. After switching out to the Great American pastel set, I built out the outbuildings, barn, house, and trees. I really like the sky at this point, and wish I had left it more like this. But NOOOO, sometimes I do not leave well-enough alone!

3. For the windows and doors on the barn and the house and the shading of the silos, I used subtle pastel pencil marks. I wanted to keep the corn field between the viewer and the horizon filled with a hint of the winds swirling around. I don't like the amount of turquoise that I used in the sky, so I'll be fixing that in the next step.

4. Here, I've brightened the sky, covering over most of the turquoise that was overwhelming the mood. I can't wait to go back and shoot photos of all of these pieces under optimum lighting conditions!

Day 30: Sailboat

from January 30, 2012

Sailboat, a soft pastel on 9.5x7.5 inch yellow/cream PastelMat.

1. All of the composition thus far was built with NuPastels and finger-blending. My main goals in today's piece are to get the architecture of the boat (mostly) correct based on abstracting the single boat from a sea of docked vessels and to make sure that I don't get bogged down in all the minute details, but rather the afternoon lighting.

2. Adding in the greenery surrounding the dock area helped define the negative space around the boat and turns the cream into a color perceived by the viewer as a bright white.

3. After making the draping on the sail feel believable, I wanted to add in the fenders and the railings on which they were hanged.

4. After building the fenders, their shadows needed to be cast onto the boat and in the reflections in the water.

5. After refining the details in the fenders and the engine, I added in the ladder. I used pastel pencils to refine the fine-line details, and did a little restructuring of the shape of the stern.