A little foray into Pastels - trees on tinted paper.

I rediscovered the joys of colour pastels during a two-day pastel workshop that I held in the summer.  The students embraced the challenges of the chalks, and enjoyed the effects particular to this medium, including their tactile nature. Getting the hands dirty!

Students on the workshop

Some student studies from the first day

I  fell in love with the immediacy of the chalks and decided to do a few more drawings myself after the workshop, to see how far I could push them. I hadn't done any tree paintings for a while (I love trees but find them so challenging that I can only do one or two per year,,,,) so thought it would be interesting to see how they would turn out, in pastels. 

The start! Rough and general, not specific.

I chose to work on grey paper, size A3. I began by gently marking where I wanted the tree trunks, drawing them lightly in lilac, as bold structure-lines breaking up the page. I then roughly blocked in the contrasting tones, with particular attention to the brightest areas so as to retain the clean lights. 

Close up of the textures

Once the big tones were blocked it, I revisited adding detail using shorter strokes. I learnt a great deal, about how much (or how little) layering the pastels accepted, and how some looser areas help direct the viewer's gaze. It was satisfying, interesting and frustrating, in equal measure. It took about 4 days at the easel. 

The finished artwork - 'Light Through the Trees at Shaw's Bridge'

Autumn colours. 

For the next tree-scape I chose a blue paper, and marked in the trunks first, as previously, keeping the sunny-side of the trunks white and the shadow-sides cool blue and purple, which contrasts vividly with the folks and browns. 

For info on workshops and weekly classes please email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk