Painting Without Edges

Rounding the Bend Again, pastel, 9x12

After reading an inspiring blog post recently by Richard McKinley, I thought the ideas he presented would make a great class exercise for my students. In his blog post, Richard describes an approach to painting that uses very gradual transitions between colors and values. You can read his post here: http://www.artistsnetwork.com/articles/art-demos-techniques/pastel-painting-with-sfumato-putting-a-renaissance-painting-idea-into-practice.

This method works great for hazy or foggy atmospheric conditions. The reference photo I used for the painting shown here was shot on a misty day with hazy, diffused light conditions, which was perfect for this approach!

I notice that many of my students struggle with overdefining edges that could be much softer, or even eliminated. So for my demonstration I blocked in the entire painting without using lines or edges. (I did VERY lightly pencil in a just a few guidelines for me to block in the shapes and colors I wanted to start with.) Any definition of edges used in the painting were gradually added at later stages.

Blocking in with a variety of Nupastels.
I kept it very abstract at the start, addressing only
 large shapes and overall composition.

I used an alcohol wash to wet down the underpainting.

Since my focal point is toward the upper right, that's
the only place I allow a few edges to start to be defined.

In the refinements here, I make small value adjustments.

Completed painting, on Uart 320 grit mounted to
acid free foam board.