January 16, 2012
Sandhills, a soft pastel on a 6x6 sage-colored Canson Mi-Tientes Touch, a new sanded surface.
1. Using a white Conte pastel pencil, I sketched in in outlines of the main characters in today's production.
2. To ensure that I didn't overfill the tooth of this new paper (especially for the birds), I did some initial terrain contouring with NuPastels, using the side of the sticks to lay down just touches of color.
3. Here I began adding in the main structural details for the birds, building up shadows and working to retain the late afternoon highlights. Almost as soon as the red went in on the head, these critters started to take over the composition, as intended.
4. Because I have no interruptions coming through today,I was able to step back from the piece at regular intervals to do value checks, which were essential to build these birds into the terrain while still retaining a bit of their natural camouflage characteristics.
5. With yet another composition based on harsh afternoon sun, I also wanted to make sure that some of the longer grasses were well-represented as being well lit by the sun, including the yummy piece that the lead Sandhill carries in its beak.
6. I used a silicone shaper to do a little blending on the birds to minimize the chunks that tend to disrupt their natural curvatures. I also wanted to pull in some very thin grasses in the foreground, using careful strokes of the Great American sticks.
7. Here, I've resurrected the vibrance of the highlights and darkened a few of the shadows to bring more dimension to the pieces (better exposure of the digital image also helps). I am apparently getting more efficient with each passing day, which means that I can now turn a little piece like this out in about 2.5 hours. I guess that sounds amazing to me, since I usually don't have that big a block of time on any one given day to devote to this pursuit. I most definitely envy those of you who can spend every day in their studio immersed in their art!
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