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| Cool tones for a cool afternoon. |
Here are two pastels, sized 5" by 7". Both depict scenes from Irwin
Park about a mile from where I live. The first is quite loose in style,
depicting an open field on a windy, sunny day. The "palette", that
is, the colors used most prominently in the pastel painting, tend toward blue and
white with a little purple added. These are often referred to as cool in tone,
and they make the viewer feel that way. That is, cool as in temperature, not
attitude. It was a bit chilly that afternoon.
I
used a lot of long chalk strokes, hoping to convey the continuously changing
patchwork of light caused by the swaying branches and moving foliage around me.
The viewer might even 'feel' the vibrant atmosphere.
Getting warmth to show through
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| Stillness goes with warmer tones in this scene. |
The
second painting shows a path about a third of a mile away, running through a
small valley sheltered from the elements more than the field shown in the
first picture. The canopy of trees is cut off from the wind, producing an
environment that feels warm and still.
So
the painting tends to use warmer colors, that is greens with a yellow tint, and
even the purples have a dose of orange in them. You can still sense the same
blue sky with hints of white in it. The drawing is much more traditional,
relying a bit on techniques picked up from a 19th century book on how to draw
trees. Too much line work would have distorted the sense of stillness. The
patches of light are there, but are not constantly shifting.
A technique called scumbling
I did employ a nice late 20th Century technique called scumbling on the lower
right-hand corner; I dragged the side of a large yellow pastel over a section of
dark green to create the illusion of sunlight filtering through onto a patch of
grass and small shrubs.
Although
one painting appears tightly rendered and the other full of aggressive line
strokes, both pieces are equally abstract.
