Let's Paint Water with Water!

'At the Beach'          8x10            pastel             ©Karen Margulis
available $155

 How would you start a pastel painting that is all about water? There are so many ways to start a painting that it can be hard to decide. I thought that I would make it easy and start my latest seascape with water! Watercolor that is.  I love using watercolor underpaintings but I usually use them for my wildflower paintings.  It makes sense that a watercolor start would give your painting a head start on the feeling of water.

To create this watercolor underpainting I used a piece of white Pastelmat. I like Pastelmat but since it is made from cellulose it tends to suck up the water rather than letting it drip. I did manage to get some interesting blooms of color though.  I like to use white paper so that the colors will be more luminous and vibrant. The great thing about the Pastelmat is that it is stiff enough that it did not buckle at all!

Here are a few photos of my underpainting progress. As you can see the blue horizon line kept growing! the pant was being sucked up into the paper. I finally stopped and decided I would correct the horizon line with pastel.

My choice of watercolor for this underpainting was Pelikan pan watercolors. This is the opaque set which is pretty vibrant for an inexpensive set.

One thing to note about using water with Pastelmat is that is takes longer than other sanded paper to dry. Think of how long it takes for a wet sponge to dry! But once it was dry it was a pleasure to apply the pastels. (Note that there is word going around that you cannot use alcohol on Pastelmat. I have done it without an issue but I will ask at the upcoming IAPS convention and report back!)