"Patience" Animal, pastel, 16 x 20

"Patience" 16 x 20

I have been playing around lately with trying to find the right support and process.  I think I am going to stick with the sanded Uart papers, but this one was on watercolor paper.   It took a while to complete, but I am rather pleased with it.  When you look at it from this photo you cant see all of the detailed hatch marks and strokes.


Here are a few progress shots.  In this case I did a full watercolor underpainting before applying pastel.


First I did a light overall wash of ochre.  I applied blue to the background and the areas that will be darkest.

I applied local color in watercolor to the horse body.

I added warm tones to the area where the sun hit the form of the horse directly.  I did this also in watercolor.

My first pass with pastel was done very quickly.  I am starting to tone down the very bright underpainting.  Doing a pastel on top of such a bright base will make it glow from with in. I try to accomplish this inner glow with most of my paintings. I continued to add local colors for another pass.

The final pass was done with pencil and sharpened nupastels in order to accomplish those very detailed hatch marks.  This texture creates movement in the painting. On this close up you can see that the underpainting and many layers of pastels on top of it all shine through.