Shadows on the Marsh, pastel, 20 x 30

This is a large pastel version of one of the paintings I did last week in Minnesota.  When I was working in oil at this location, I couldn't quite capture the brilliant blue that I saw reflected in the water, but I think this version better depicts the color vibration I was after.  Still might tweak the foreground grass a bit.  Need to stop looking at it for awhile.

Late Autumn Marsh, oil, 8 x 10

My third day painting in Minnesota. Had a beautiful, sunny day today for this one.  Although I seemed to struggle more with this one than the past two days of painting in colder, overcast conditions.  It was such a pretty view that I think I resorted to "copying" the scene rather than interpreting it.  I'm hoping to do all three of them larger in the studio at some point.

Silver Lake Shimmer, oil, 8 x 10

I headed back out today to paint in some more 30ish degree Minnesota temperatures.  This is the same general area as yesterday's post, but from different view.  Although most people think of the colder seasons in the north as bleak and dull, I actually find the colors much more interesting than the green foliage of the warmer seasons.

November Afternoon, oil, 6 x 8

This was done today on location in Princeton, Minnesota, where I visit family once or twice a year.  I've painted this area frequently from photos I've taken over the many years that I've been coming here.  I've even painted this particular view recently in pastel (shown in an earlier post) from one of my photos.  This is my first plein air effort up here.

A Winter Walk, pastel, 11 x 14

This was part two of a winter landscape series I'm doing in my Wednesday and Thursday classes.  In this week's scene we had more snow to work with, which had lots of sunlight and shadows.  Getting values correct in the snow was tricky.  I found that after Wednesday's demo, I had to lighten my shadows quite a bit and warm up parts of the sunlit snow.  Shown here is that "adjusted" demo from Wednesday.

Standing Tall, pastel, 12 x 9

This was my demo from Monday's class this week, which ended the fall quarter for this particular class.  Since we're heading into the winter months, and I'm also in the midst of a series on the winter landscape in my other classes, I thought it was fitting to end this class with a snow scene.  In my demonstration, I focused on color temperature and values in the snow, and how to handle the barren, winter "stick" trees without rendering every branch.

Winter Serenity, pastel, 12 x 16

In my Wednesday and Thursday classes we're starting a series on winter landscapes.  This first scene has just portions of the landscape covered in snow, so the challenge was to show the snow peeking through the grassy field.  In the next few classes, we'll have it "snow a little bit more" in each scene.  Winter Serenity is my demo from this morning's class.



Blue Pitcher and Pear, pastel, 12 x 9

 Today was still life day in my Monday class.  We kept the setup to just a couple of basic objects and focused on simplifying and matching values rather than exact color.  This is my demo from this morning's class.



Last Bit of Light, pastel, 12 x 16

 This was a demo that I worked on in both my Wednesday and Thursday classes this week. With my reference photo having much of the image area in shadow, my objective was to increase the color vibrancy in the shadows to make those areas more exciting. Many artists typically like to pump up the color in the sundrenched highlight areas, but I find that there's also lots of opportunity to do this in the shadows.