Landscape Studies with Pastel (Day Two)

I did more work on my copy of Degas. Here is a side-by-side comparison. Oh dear, I didn't finish the chair. 

Degas' Le Bain 1886 Pastel

Copy of Degas' Le Bain

A rainy morning dictated our painting schedule. We started off with a still life. 

I learned from Linda that a heavy handed pastel painter like me can mitigate this problem/tendency by using a hatch-mark style of applying pastel, and so I tried it. My efforts along this path produced this work-in-progress still life. 

Still Life (work-in-progress) 5.17.15

I learned or rather was reminded that palette colors applied in multiple spots in a painting makes for a more harmonious outcome—spread it around!

And, as always, we were reminded that GETTING THE VALUE RIGHT is the most important first step, perhaps every step, in a painting. 

As a group we agreed on what would be the best procedure . . .

BEFORE beginning a painting, set aside a likely palette into GROUPS: darks, mid-tones, and lights, putting your colors in their appropriate value group, and remembering that ONLY a color within the same VALUE group can be used on any spot of color—dark-for-dark, light-for-light, etc.

Landscape Studies with Pastel (Day One)

I'm taking a weekend workshop with artist/instructor Linda Carey. Check out this Painting Perceptions link to see some of her work and on the side bar a Recent Comment by much admired BSSS artist/instructor Ron Boehmer on artistic process.

Day One: Linda asked us to duplicate a Degas pastel of our own choosing using a limited palette on toned Canson Mi-Teintes pastel paper. I'll post my effort alongside the original when I finish it--a truly humbling experience. There's nothing you can attempt artistically that is more illuminating than copying a Degas. I've heard more than once that the best way to learn pastels is to copy Degas, and the best way to learn color theory.

Linda introduced us to one book in particular I want to add to my shelf, Degas: The Nudes by Richard Thompson available at Amazon--lots of beautiful images.

Two new things I learned about Degas on Saturday:

• He liked to draw the figure on tracing paper and use it in multiple drawings/paintings.
• He sometimes started a representational figure painting and later turned it into an abstracted landscape or totally non-referential abstraction.