Revisiting an Old Friend. Painting What You Love

'Autumn Magic'               9x12               pastel                 ©Karen Margulis
available $165

After a month out of my comfort zone it was time to get back into the weeds! I had fun pushing myself to add figures to my landscapes. It was a great month on Patreon with so much wonderful work shared by the group. As the month draws to the close I just wanted to paint some tangled weeds and let go!  This is a great way to work and grow. Spending time with the unfamiliar helps you do a better job with the familiar.

I decided to block in the big shapes of my tangled scene with a rich dark. This dark would form the foundation for the composition and would hold all the details in place. In a filed or meadow I like to think of this dark block in as the DIRT. The dirt holds onto the roots and prevents the grasses and flowers from floating.

I used a black Sharpie marker on Canson unsanded paper on the smooth side. It was such a liberating way to start a painting! I enjoyed the process and especially enjoyed the freedom of making grass marks after painting people!

white Canson Mi-teintes paper

I have painted this scene before. For this painting I explored a variation on the composition. You can see a step by step demo on my Patreon Page. www.patreon.com/karenmargulis

You can see a demo of the previous version on the blog here:http://kemstudios.blogspot.com/2015/11/how-to-use-notan-in-unexpected-way.html