Valley of the Dordogne, 20 x 16, UART 400

Underpainting

Painted completed during demonstraction

This is a painting that I began yesterday as a demonstration for a three day workshop that I’m giving in Rockville.  I’ve also included the underpainting and the painting as it was completed during the demo.  Interestingly, I used something different for the underpainting.  All of my really light hard pastels are down to nothing!  One of the participants mentioned pan pastels, which just happened to be on my cart. So I opened them up, and chose a yellow of the right value and sponged it on. It worked great, as you can see in the image of the underpainting. I may use these more often–a revelation!!!  When I began the painting, I talked about the challenges of the photo, the main one being the large corn field. However, it turned out to be a lot easier than we thought. I used violets in the underpainting and when I brushed several Blue Earth greens on over it, the surface left little pockets of the violet showing. The class was amazed at the result and how little time it took!  However, I wasn’t completely satisfied. I wished I’d put some darker color in the lower right corner, above the dark border of the field. I ended up adding some dark pieces of color into it, and I used more greens and varied strokes to give it interest.  I’m happy with it now.  When the photo was taken, it was an overcast day with white and gray clouds. I chose to give it a more cheery blue sky. But then I had to think about the trees and bushes. Today, I added more darks and lights to the poplars and the bushes in front of it, as well as some lighter yellow green on top of the corn.  Another change from the photo was the positioning of the poppies. In the forefront, I had them spill to the left out of the bottom. This gave a more interesting progression to my eye.  This picture was really fun to do and it was a lovely remembrance of the walk John and I took on our last day in this beautiful part of France.