Saturday, March 6, 2010

Pastel of Sedona

I decided to do a second pastel of Sedona Arizona, especially since my brother Michael sent me a really great shot that had an interesting view and lots of color. It seemed perfect to paint a pastel picture. I began with one of my standard 9X13" LaCarte pastel cards and sketched out a few details that would guide me, and make me stay in perspective. I went through the routine of putting in darker colors so I could overlay the lighter ones.  It was for some reason a lot more difficult than I had expected. The mountains or buttes had a lot of detail. Not only that, there were all these trees and bushes and prickly pear cactus that lined the pathway. I was not sure if I had enough different greens to show both shading and different bushes. The other element was the late afternoon suns rays that dappled the trees and bushes and left sunlight patches and shadow on the pathway.

It took some work, and a lot of detail to get the picture the way I wanted it. Once I was finished I was pleased with the end result. I posted it on my Flickr account and immediately started getting a lot of feedback from fellow artists. They sure help to give one confidence. When I took the painting to class, my teacher really liked it, as did my peer students. I hope you like it.

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