Early on a Winter's Evening

There is a certain enchanting beauty about a heavy snowfall on evergreens at the end of a winter’s day. I wanted to capture the peaceful quality of a northern Canadian landscape since this is where I’m from and we certainly have had a peaceful and long winter this year, which has brought several inches of snow although I am getting rather tired of the snow at this point in the year. This will probably be the last snow painting that I depict for a bit and plan on painting other subjects including a few spring landscapes if I can find the proper references or the wherewithal to paint.

I rarely talk about the actual application of the pastel however it might be interesting to some so…Many pastelists like to use harder pastels in the beginning and layer the softer ones over top however I don’t really like the hard pastel I have well enough to use them so I move straight to the Girault which are medium hard to the really soft one’s like Ludwig and Unison and keep layering until I either achieve what I want or I run out of layering surface. I don’t bother with an under-painting or anything fancy. It’s better to concentrate on things I need to work on improving such as the values changes, composition and color application.

Early on a Winter's Evening
Etsy

Morning Mist on a Northern Lake

I first picked up oils again about four years ago and this was one of the first paintings that I did and actually liked and triggered a memory of a natural landscape which I can’t quite identify which leaves me with a feeling of nostalgia.  It has been hanging on a wall in my house ever since I finished it and I finally decided to part with it and try to sell it online.  An artistic teacher had said something about how artists don’t try to paint mist and fog in their landscape paintings often enough and these atmospheric weather conditions have always held a certain attraction for me so I try to do this periodically and this was one of the first oil paintings where I practiced this.  I used artist grade Windsor and Newton oil paints on a pre-stretched canvas which is also an artist grade support. After about a year and a half of painting with oils I found soft pastels and enjoy using them since they require less clean up and you get finished results much sooner or at least I usually tend not to play around with pastels as much as the oils. I also needed to put the oils down since lifting the brush up and over the level of my shoulder was painful and the whole arm would go numb and the shoulder joint would hurt like crazy! I’m hoping that the shoulder will permit me to pick up the oils again if I should feel the lure of the brush again. I pulled the oils out recently and looked them over however the desire to use them didn’t quite hit me yet hopefully it will in the future and I would like to develop a more mature style with the soft pastels as well.

Morning Mist on a Northern Lake, Oil on Canvas, 16x20"

Morning Flight Over the Harbor

This looks like a tropical lagoon as seen from a plane window and this shot does put me in mind of flying if I was a bird. I have had dreams of flying places and being high up in the sky or floating in the air above trees and water. I used cooler tones and tried to capture the early morning light to give this a soft slightly moody quality. I used Unison and Terry Ludwig pastels on Wallis Pro White Paper, 12x18”.

Morning Flight Over the Harbor, Pastel on Pastel Paper, 12x18"

Early Spring Morn

It was time to paint a larger pastel landscape, in fact it’s probably the largest that I’ve done to date. With spring just around the corner it seemed time to create a pastel landscape based on my river/trees theme and I wanted to feature both deciduous and coniferous trees. The cooler pinks, violets, yellows and greens seem to be the best choice for a softer spring color selection. I also used low key values since the sun is just thinking of peeking over the trees on a cool and overcast spring morning.

Early Spring Morn, Pastel on Wallis Belgium Mist, 18 x 24”
Etsy Listing

This is the original picture; I decided that there was just too much water in the foreground and the composition was just too symmetrical so I cropped it:

I used Wallis Belgium Mist which certainly does take many layers of color providing a chance to create a rich and textured tapestry of color, something only the Belgium Mist will allow. I hope Kitty Wallis will continue to make this paper for years to come.

The original reference picture came from a collection of high quality photo’s that I downloaded from Johannes Vloothuis for a minimal fee of $20. He has over 700 pictures of various landscape scenes and buildings including scenes from Mexico and Cape Cod. Worth checking out especially if you’re as bad at finding pictures with a descent composition to work from as I am: http://www.improvemypaintings.com/Reference%20Photos.html