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Monday, April 20, 2020

I Found Some Great Wildflowers in Alaska! Texture Tips



'Beyond Serenity'                        8x10                 pastel                ©Karen Margulis
available in my Etsy shop  $165
Our summer cruise to Alaska was amazing. I wasn't sure what to expect. I was ready to see glaciers and ice. I was pleasantly surprised by the rest of the coastal landscape....especially the wild and weedy wildflowers. They were everywhere and I couldn't get enough. I love wildflowers, the more tangled and wild the better. But the Alaska weeds had the most amazing backdrop of snow covered mountains and beautiful waters.  I don't think I will ever tire of painting from the photos I took.

Alaska is state number 8 in my Paint Our Beautiful World series.  I had fun with this painting because I rescued an old abandoned painting I had done on an 8x10 piece of Pastelbord. I had applied thick texture with a pumice and gesso mix and the ridges were very deep. I had trouble with the texture. The painting was unsuccessful. But I didn't want to waste a good Pastelbord. I decided to work with the texture. 

I discovered something important. I didn't work hard enough to conquer the texture in the previous painting! It required layers of pastel with pushing the pigment into the grooves and using layers of workable fixative. It looks like it was simple but it actually took me awhile to achieve. 

Here is another tip for working with texture: If you want to downplay the texture you can rub the pastel layer into the paper. If you really want a smooth area use some sandpaper to smooth out those areas.


You can see the entire step by step photo demo for this painting on my Patreon Page. 

A LOT of texture!



close up of texture

1 comment:

mihail.stamatelos said...

Good morning from Greece I learned this technique from a painter by watching her work MARGI LUCENA which paints exclusively so I have applied it and I am really strangely beautiful technique I follow you constantly to be in good health first and the rest come second