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| 'When the Magic Happens' 8x10 pastel ©Karen Margulis available for purchase $145 |
Today I turned up the volume. I put on my favorite music. Loud. I took out a new set of pastels and spent a fun afternoon painting. Yesterday was mellow. My palette was soft and muted. My fall painting was understated and quiet. (see the post here) Today my palette is quite different. I love that about pastels. We can easily be inspired by looking at a box of colors. There is no need to figure out how to mix a color....they are all there in front of us like a box of chocolates. The trick is deciding which ones to use!
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| Unison Special Collection 1-18 |
I had purchased this box of pastels at an art material expo last February. I am just now getting around to trying out some of the supplies I bought. I have a basket full of goodies! I couldn't resist this box of Unison pastels. The colors in the Jack Richeson Special Collection 1-18 are luscious and rich. I loved every single one. So the set came home with me. It would be the perfect set to use for some fiery autumn colors!
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| The block in |
I selected a piece of Uart paper that I had already toned yellow. A warm tone would work well with the fiery colors in my sunset lit trees. I decided to to an alcohol wash so I blocked in the big shapes with a few hard pastels....orange for the trees, blue for the sky and water and dark blue for the trees in the shadows.
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| The finished underpainting |
I chose an alcohol wash so that I could incorporate the watery drips into my tree reflections. I got some good drips this time! Once the underpainting was dry I started layering with the Unsion pastels. I used the oranges and purples in the trees and the blues and greens in the distant trees.
Since these colors are all pretty intense I needed some quieter colors for balance. I used some pale peaches for the sky and water and some muted purples for the shadowed grasses.
I used some of the bright blues for my spices. Can you find them?
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| close up detail. |
1 comment:
Wow! Oh that's gorgeous! Love the saturated intensity of today's palette and its joyous colors! Those blazing trees make me smile and think of happy times spent in more temperate climates. Fall was always the time of year I was most capable of going outside and doing things, so fall colors mean being able to really go out in the woods!
Beautiful painting and personally a cheerier one than yesterday's muggy overcast one - very personal reaction to brilliant atmospheric depictions. Yesterday's would be a pain day for me and today's would be a great "Wow, I can get out and paint!" day based on how it looks. Both beautiful and true, this one has that added spark of joy and reminds me of that day walking on yellow leaves with yellow leaves overhead that I need to paint someday!
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