Camelot Winter

Camelot Winter, 2011
Soft Pastel 7x14 in on Arches 140 lb watercolour paper

Continuing the pastel discovery journey, here is my first winterscape.  I used Arches 140 lb watercolour paper, coated with Golden Acrylic Primer for Pastels, 4 coats.

This is a different medium from the one I normally use (ColorFix Primer ), and the texture was definitely finer, and grabbed the pastel better.

But that was scary in itself, as it was difficult at first to get a light coat until I got used to the 'grab' of the medium.

Here is a picture of the stages this pastel went through:

progression work in progress
left to right, top to bottom


You can see that it started out quite ugly, blocking in the masses in complementary colours, then starting the sky, then adding trees and snow masses, then refining the image, just before it was completed.

I'm having great fun, and seeing where I need to improve - like the trees - they should be much more abstract :-)

On to my next discovery - another winterscape, but no trees this time!  I'll put in something else to break up the snow, maybe a fence ... hmmm

This is so much fun!
TTFN