Exploring an Oil Stain Underpainting

'Profusion'        8x10       pastel       ©Karen Margulis
available $150

The final mystery underpainting was an interesting journey. I have been blogging about the three mystery underpaintings I discovered last week. Since the original reference photos were lost I had no idea what my intentions were for these underpaintings. That made it more fun!

The last underpainting was an oil stain on Uart paper. I love doing oil underpainting because of the cool drips but I am usually too impatient to go bother with dragging out paint, brushes and turpenoid. See more about oils stain underpaintings here.

Now I get to decide what this painting should me. My first impression was that it should be a marsh. The drips resembled marsh grasses to me.

No this won't work!

I took out my stack of marsh photos and found a few that might work. I decided on an old photo from New Jersey. I took this at sunrise as we drove along the highway. I was excited to start but then realized it would take too much away from the underpainting to make this scene work.  I scrapped it and went in a totally different direction.

Ah, this is a better choice

I now saw the underpainting as suggesting the dirt and tangle of grass and stems found in one of my Queen Anne's Lace photos. The colors and texture were perfect for this scene. I used both Terry Ludwig pastels and a few of my new Russian pastels for the grasses.
By the way thank you to all of you who translated the box for me!