Capturing the Colors of the Southwest ...Pastel Demo

'John Wayne Country' 8x10 pastel ©Karen Margulis

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The landscape of the Southwest is calling to me! I am so glad that I decided to attend the 1st Annual Plein Air Convention in Las Vegas. In two weeks I will have an opportunity to paint in Red Rock Canyon and I can't wait. Not to mention all of the wonderful artists who will be there...both the instructors and the attendees.

I am working this week on desert landscapes so I can test my pastel box of colors that I plan to bring. Yesterday I did a painting that depicts the red rocks with intense late afternoon light. I was going for the glow on the rocks. You can see the painting HERE. For today's painting I wanted to capture the more subtle colors of the desert. I did need to add a couple of new colors to my box so I am glad I am testing this week!

Mini Demo of 'John Wayne Country'

I chose a photo from a trip I took to Moab, Utah. We went on a horseback ride in an area that many old Westerns were filmed. I had my camera on the ride and just kept shooting the wonderful desert landscape. Read on to see my thoughts on developing this pastel.

1. (from left) I worked from a reference photo on my new ipad.(love this way of working) I first did a small thumbnail/value study. I am working on Uart paper.
   
2. I am also bringing a small box of Nupastels so from this box I chose some colors to block in my big shapes. I am planning on doing an alcohol wash underpainting. See more about alcohol washes in this post. I chose colors that are bolder and darker than I want my painting to be. I can always tone things down but it is harder to bring back boldness.
3. The alcohol has been brushed into the pastel with a stiff bristle brush. Notice the cool drips!
4. Once the alcohol wash has dried I am now ready to work with my softer pastels. I start by reinforcing the dark areas but applying 2-3 layers of dark values.
5. Once the darks are established I work on the light areas....in this painting it was the sky. I applied a few layers of blues all of similar values so I could have an interesting sky.
6. Now that the darks and lights are established I choose to work from top to bottom so I work on the distant cliffs and work my way down to the bushes in the foreground. I really wanted to make sure my pastel set had the right greens for the Southwestern plants and I was happy with my selection.
7. The next step is to refine the painting and add details where needed. I decided that the colors of the sand and the distant cliffs were still more intense than I wanted so I scumbled some blues and cooler sand colors over the cliffs and sand to tone them down. The result is a different feeling to a similar landscape from yesterday's red rock painting. It was a good test of my pastel box.