Curry's Art Auction for Dystonia

I’m happy to announce that I have two pastel landscape paintings that have been included in Curry’s Charitable Art Auction benefiting Dystonia to be held at the Liberty Grand in Toronto on October 25, 2011.

Springtime Reflected

Late Afternoon Along the Grand River

The whole story can be read here:
http://www.mississauga.com/what%27s%20on/article/1219086–art-auction-celebrates-100-years

You can see the other excellent artists who have been selected here:
https://www.currys.com/generic.htm?ECINFO=AUCTIONPREVIEW1

As well as the online art gallery:
https://www.currys.com/generic.htm?ECINFO=ONLINEGALLERY

Stepping into Woodland Light

This painting is taken pretty much directly from a photo taken by a Flickr artist of a place in Wales, UK called Hafod Forest. Normally photographs need a good deal of improvements and several runs through a sketch book before I start the final work but this picture was one of those rare perfect compositions or at least it seemed to have the near magical qualities that I was looking for. I like to capture a certain presence or perhaps an awareness of place in my work, and it’s not at all common to see on such type of  subject and photographer come together in one place.  

This is also the largest work that I’ve done in pastel since first picking them up again. I do like working in the larger format since it allows for more detail and larger paintings are more noticeable. The portal or pathway between the two trees was the primary element that attracted me to the picture, but when reinterpreting the subject I found that it was necessary to be careful and avoid segmenting the composition too much so I decided to soften the lines and integrate the objects together to create more unity. 

I also finally decided to try Colorfix primer after reading all the wonderful reviews for it and felt a little let down after trying it on Canson’s Multimedia sketchbook paper then primed a Canson Art Board and was much happier with that surface. I used my usual Ludwig/Unison combination of pastels and after several hours of work, I am fairly happy with the result. 

Thank you Claire for sharing this lovely place and for allowing me to use your picture. You can find the original photo at Claire’s blog Here. Also you can find more information about the Hafod Estate Here.

Stepping Into Woodland Light 16x20" Pastel on Primed Board
Etsy Listing

Springtime Reflected

Somehow this painting started out as an autumn scene and transformed itself into a spring scene, not sure how that happened, perhaps it had something to do with the arrival of season after a very long winter. 

I worked on a new surface wanting to experiment with something a little different and I do like how the colors are more brilliant and striking then on the colored surfaces. I had started another pastel on an Ampersand Pastelbord and ended up washing it off and repriming it with several layers of Golden Fine Pumice Gel.  Another time I would use a coarse ground for soft pastel since this would allow for more layers of the pastel and it would be more agreeable with my soft Ludwig’s.

The trees and shrubs remind me of forsythia, purple smoke brushes and apple or pear trees in bloom, which are species I saw frequently in the horticulture business. I also used the beautiful Unison turquoise pastels in the sky along with a very pale and cooler Ludwig turquoise in the water. The colors in water should always be cooler than those on land, one of the ways you can separate land from water. 

Springtime Reflected   12x16"   Pastel on Pastelbord