The Fickle Pickle, pastel, 9 x 12

Continuing with our Buildings & Structures series in my weekly pastel classes, we moved "in town" to do some street scenes, where the subject matter gets much busier.

I used a monochromatic underpainting to get things started, and connected as many shapes of similar values as possible. Squinting is key with busy subject matter. My goal in the underpainting stage is to have the underpainting look like my photo appears when I squint real hard at the photo. With this painting especially, I found that attempting perfectly drawn lines is a waste of time. I find that it's usually best to leave your first stroke of pastel alone, and avoid the temptation to continually fine tune each stroke with a more perfect one. It's a better use of your time to make sure you have the correct value than to get perfectly drawn strokes.

This scene is another location along Canton Street in Historic Roswell, GA. The Fickle Pickle is a quaint little restaurant that serves scrumptious sandwiches and salads. I've eaten lunch there a few times with some artist friends after a morning of painting, so I thought it would be fitting to paint it!