Blog

The Stroll 14x20 Pastel

It is March and winter now seems long.  It is too icy out to paint and so I decided to blend a photo reference, some plein air work to create sunshine.  A couple of years ago I visited the local metropark to take photo references during the civil war days.  Kids were running around dressed in outfits straight from "Little House on the prairie".  I snapped this photo of this little girl and a boy while I stood on a bridge which is why I have a bird's eye view of her.  I loved the sense of movement and the look of purpose on the little girls face and decided to use this as a starting point for the painting.  First thing was to remove her companion.  You can see a bit of his foot on her left.

This is not a portrait commission so I was not concerned with likeness but focused on the gesture.  The perspective made it more challenging but I wanted to capture the sense of movement.  Next the green grass was boring but I loved the little patch of sunlight behind her.  I decided to put the photo into gray scale and play with patterns of light to create a composition.  I checked the composition by running the photo through a filter called posterize which allowed me to put the painting into 4 values.  This became my Photoshop thumbnail sketch.

Next I went to my plein air sketches to have some reference to speckled summer light.  I used those as color references and tried to be very careful to keep the background loose.  The sketches are paintings that were done from life but not finished.  Working from life will give you a true reading of color and they act as a library of light reference of different seasons.   I thought about how when areas of light narrow between shadows they warm and darken.  Glazes of pink and orange were added around the edges of the shadows and it is amazing how adding that warmth makes the sunshine feel real.  It is still snowy outside but at least there is some sunshine in my studio.