Marsh Inlet - pastel

Today was one of those days that was a bit of a grind in the studio...where nothing but "blah/ick/ugh" is created, despite what seems to be a good effort.   It's day two of grey skies with no sun, and that no doubt played a part, as I find it really depressing.  The weather here is a constant reminder to me that mid-July [our moving date to Durango] really can't get here soon enough.

I'd started a painting a couple days ago, based on one of the Bluff Point photos I took 2 weeks ago.  It wasn't one that made it onto the blog, but I took a similar one, of the curving shoreline and distal treeline along Brushy Pt., back in Nov.  Well, I couldn't make it work, despite reworking it twice.  So, I decided to move on to something else for the time being.

One of my favorite photos out of that lot was one that I liked because of its very abstract nature, and that's how I intended to paint it.  The design and shapes were simple, and not wanting to get overly committed to it in case it was a complete junker, I decided to use some Strathmore Artagain paper, which I haven't used in a while now.   The smooth surface of the paper forces looseness and dedicated strokes, because it just doesn't hold much pastel at all.  And, some of the softer pastels (Sennelier in particular) just form flakes and don't stick at all (white part of the cloud being the part in this painting).

For most pastels, I either use a white pastel pencil or charcoal/charcoal pencil to draw the shapes and sometimes to block in basic values.  I didn't do any preliminary blocking in - just started grabbing whatever colors suited my fancy at the time, with the only attempt at actual matching done for the water.  It was good in that it helped me get back into a groove a little bit and it's not so gawd-awful that I won't post it.  I may revisit it on a better surface and larger size and with more thought given to the colors, but in the meantime, here it is.  The Olympus did a respectable job, even in the awful natural lighting.  So, at least that's a good thing!

Marsh Inlet - 9x12"

pastel on Strathmore Artagain paper

I managed to knock out two more pastels and start on a third today.  I'll post those tomorrow.  It's supposed to be sunny, which is a good thing.