Water's Path - Willochra Creek "WIP" three

I just love to paint Mount Remarkable bathed in an atmospheric light that gives depth to the painting. Using the flat end of pastels lightly applied to the tooth of the Art Spectrum paper allows small amounts of colour to mix. Each new colour is another layer (not all the areas are applied with each new colour), which in the end starts to smooth out. I have not done any blending; the application of pastel does the blending. I finish with a warm tone that is only touched in minuscule detail to give the Mount a ‘glow’. At the base of the mountain the colour is applied in the same way but with warmer tones. Also the tops of the canopies of the trees are highlighted a little more to give them more shape.

Coming down to the central area: For the most part the grass blades are short because the growth at this time is soon after much needed rain. I found it best to scrape pastel in a horizontal fashion further back against the tree line then as I come towards the creek; follow the bank downwards with short strokes of colour so that one crosses slightly over the other in a very narrow hatch technique. There are roughly six colours used in the grasses that are in sunlight remembering it is very short so some of the colour represents soil. The blades are longer in and around the rocks due to more moisture trapped so this will allow me to make the rocks look so much more grounded than how they would look when sitting on top of soil.

When putting the sky in and around the far right tree I was finding I was becoming quite frustrated with the slow process. Also I had to come back out over the sky with the ‘greens’ to soften the edges, which ended up adding more bulk to the foliage then having to brush pastel off and redo some again because the canopies are excessively heavy. Well I decided to put the sky in before going back into the canopy of the remaining foliage because my trees always seem to look more natural with this technique. I girl is allowed to change her mind isn’t she? My way of thinking, the darkest darks of the foliage are still best laid in before the sky or they will be contaminated by the lights then look pasty. Still plenty to do in this area and off to do that this very minute….. Catch ya next time!


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