San Blas Sunset no. 1, 12″ x 16″, UART 320

Step 1 Watercolor

Step 2 Hard pastel applied

Step 3 Alcohol applied

Step 4 Beginnings of sky color added

Step 5 Warm colors added to sky

Step 6 Further def of sky and clouds

On Monday I did the first of two sunset demos from our recent trip to Costa Rica and Panama.  I was going to do snow but decided I had little interest in it at this point!  I gave the picture a lot of thought

Step 7 Sun added

and decided that I would do a dual underpainting.  My first step was to draw the horizon line and do a watercolor underpainting for the sky. I used a turquoise and an orange, mixed in places, and it worked quite nicely.  My next step was to add the clouds and water with hard pastel. I chose a “plum” colored NuPastel for the clouds and the Indigo blue and blue violet for the water. I chose the warmer color for the clouds to provide warm under cool and the sense of backlighting.

I decided to try using Pan Pastels to show how they can be used.  I find that the one place where they are useful is in these types of skies.  But after a quick try, I decided I needed to first use light applications of Giraults to the sky.  In step 4, I’ve added some light blues. In Step 5, I’ve added the distant cloud bank and the warmer sky colors with Girault.  I then added light layers of warmer colors in Pan Pastel over the blues, which you can see in Step 6. I used a little green as well to transition from the warm to the cool above. I did this at various times. I used a wedge-shaped applicator and found that using the applicator “smudged’ the pastel rather nicely but then I needed to do it everywhere so that the surface of the sky would all look the same.

For the clouds I used various shades of gray violet Giraults. I tried using a Ludwig but it was too big and soft for what I was doing.  I used very light, delicate applications of pastel.  Finally I added some of the high chroma color around the sun.  In Step 7 you can see some pretty garish red oranges!   I toned these down and then added yellow to the right and left of the sun .  Finally, I added the little mists of clouds and the pieces of backlighting and light on the clouds.

For the water, I put dark blue over dark blue, then added some lighter blue and finally some pieces of cool green.  I did very little with it. There’s a dark hump on the left side of the horizon which is one of the many tiny cays which make up the San Blas islands.

This demo took less than two hours and I got lots of help from my class!  It was really fun to do and to show how we use different methods for beginning a painting and different types of pastel to achieve subtle layers of color. I talked to them afterwards about the fact that I view each painting as a problem to to be solved and the importance of giving it thought and knowing what our options are.  That’s what makes it all so much fun and keeps it interesting.  Now I have to go off and solve the next problem for today’s demo!