What’s New? Same Pastel Ground
Thursday, March 26th, 2009Here is a painting that has literally been brewing in my head for almost two decades.
This is a monestary in Meteora, Greece. There are several of these monestaries that were built hundreds of years ago on top of these pinacles of rock. This is truly a place to get away from things. In some of them, people and supplies were pulled up the steep incline in baskets. I was fascinated by the image of trying to build one of these!
I finally decided to try my new painting surface for this painting. I used the same pastel ground since I had some leftover: 1 c. gesso, 3/4 c fine pumice, 1/4 c. water and some acrylic paint to make it a light gray. I covered both sides of a 16 x 20 in. acid free mat board with straight gesso and one side with this ground. However, this time I used a brush to intentionally leave brush marks. I wanted these marks to help with the striations and shapes in the rocks. I tried to leave the sky area smooth. I used watercolor for an underpainting and then soft pastel on top.
This is a high key painting to try and convey the clear skies and intense summer heat in Greece. I liked the effect of the brush strokes in the rocks.
Right now I am working on a painting of our trip to Ireland. This one is on Wallis paper, a sand paper. I have also just finished a couple of miniature landscape pastel paintings that are only 2 x 3 in. It takes longer than you would think to paint such a small surface.
Until next time,
Sue Flanagan