Monument Valley Pastel

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Monument Valley
Spent a little time today with Pastels. I have been eying them for months now and finally decided that enough is enough, I want to use them no matter the results. Its a fear thing with me, not wanting to fail, but one has to start somewhere. On the Daily Painter Gallery I have admired an artist by the name of Karen Margulis. Her blog: Painting my World is a wonderful place for information and inspiration on painting with pastels. I have fallen in love with her loose impressionistic style and hope to produce some pieces like hers in the future. But first there is a large learning curve!

This piece is a bit overworked. The temptation with pastels, for me at least, is to put a mark down then smudge it in. Not unlike oils done alla prima, pastels need to be left alone sometimes after the mark is made. First things first: many artists do a watercolor under-painting first, then work with the pastels. I did not do that for this one, but will try this idea again using an under-painting and compare results. 

I did do a quick layer of pastels first to draw in the main colors, sprayed it with fixative and completed most of the work, sprayed again and reworked the painting. Fixatives! You need them to do a layered work, but they do darken your painting and I feel you almost have to start over and re-establish your values. Ah, but like I said--learning curve!

Karen Margulis' Blog: http://kemstudios.blogspot.com/

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