Pastel Demo...Landscape on Homemade Surface

'Meadow Walk'                8x10          pastel                 ©Karen Margulis
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I love texture!  A great way to introduce texture to a pastel painting is to use a textured surface. Most commercial  pastel papers have a smooth and even surface. Even the roughest sanded paper tends to have an even surface. That is why I love using my own prepared surfaces. I can make them as rough and irregular as I want.  I don't use my own surfaces that often because I don't take the time to make them. It isn't hard to do so I really need to make them more often. I love painting on them!

Today I'd like to share a step by step demo of 'Meadow Walk'

1. (from top left)  I am using my own homemade support which is a pumice and gesso brushed onto a piece of Gator foam. I tinted my pumice mixture with Golden liquid acrylic before I applied it to the board.
2. I lightly sketched my main shapes with a purple Nupastel.  My first step is to block in the dark shapes. Anything that is dark is blocked in with a dark purple, dark blue and dark green. I am using all soft pastels (see below)
3. In this step you can see I have extended the dark down into the meadow to add a subtle leading line into the painting. It will be covered by the grasses but I need to put it in early.  I have also put in some mauve in the distant field, This will give added interest to the greens. I have also started to block in the mountain colors.
4. In this step I continue to add some blues and purples to the mountain. I am starting to carve into the tree shapes with the mountain color to make the shapes more interesting. I block in the sky with a dew colors....pale blues and peach.
5. In this step I am introducing some green. I have developed the trees further and added some light cool green in the distant field.
6. Now I work on the meadow. I added some pinks and peaches and I actually like the warmth that these colors add. I probably could have stopped at this point but I kept going and added some greens. I ended up overworking this part of the painting. So I rubbed it in and sprayed the bottom with workable fixative. 
7. See the darkness from the fixative? When it was dry I reworked the meadow adding more greens.  The warm colors I had put in now help make the green more exciting. I added a nice bright green in the distance and to help explain this bright spot I added a heavy layer of pale peach to the sky in the form of light peeking out through an overcast sky.
8. Now for the finishing touches. I refined the trees and scumbled some lighter greens on the trees. A few marks for wildflowers place to lead viewers into the painting and I am done. I signed with a pastel pencil.

My palette of soft pastels used for 'Meadow Walk'

 If you would like to try your own homemade surface, there are several recipes and products you can use. I wrote about it in this post about loosening up your painting style HERE

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