Pastel: Safe Harbor Week 2

I started this week under painting the water with a light blue at the very horizon. I don't want a dark blue just yet, I just want a soft light blue and my strokes are very horizontal. I filled in the area of the water behind the boat and I went over areas that had the masts, the pipes and some of the extraneous things that were on the boat I will put them in later, I needed to get that color behind my boat so I don’t have to worry about trying to paint around things later on.

I brought the color all the way down to the foreground I even went over where my crab pots will be and back towards the pier behind the boat I did leave some of the area right in front of the boat open and I did added a bit darker blue this area which will be the reflection of the boat in the water. Also in the water I added a light green and some light violet because water is not just blue it has many colors in it so don't be afraid to add colors other than blue into your water, key thing is to have long flat strokes with your pastel. If your strokes are either to”U” shaped or are at an angle, your water will not look flat so keep your strokes horizontal to the top and bottom of your paper.

Next I wanted to start in on my boat and since I don't usually use black in any medium because black can be a difficult color when it comes to blending, it turns your color dingy and muddy, I try to avoid using black unless I have no other choice. I used my dark colors such as my dark grays and I have a dark indigo blue and some dark purples and browns to fill in the dark shape of the boat. I did gently blend these colors with my finger and I went over this several times blending to get a more solid color.

The wheelhouse of the boat has part  in shadow and part in the sun. The top part that is in the shadow I used a very light lavender color, in the part that will be in the sun I used a very light grey, you need to have contrast to show light so in the light area I will put the brighter white color later on.

Part of the problem with pastel is that you need to have a lot of colors to match the colors you see. I needed a color for the tarp I did not have, no color that exactly matched the tarp on the boat so I use a turquoise blue, a little green and some white to mix color close to the color of the tarp and I used my indigo (dark blue) for the shadows on the tarp.

Inside the wheelhouse I used darker blue gray and my indigo for the shadow inside the structure. For the window I used the light blue I had used for the water create the window shape.

The buildings on the pier can be any color you want them to be I used a cool pink for the shadowed side of the front building and to that I added some green to tone it down and my indigo to create a shadow color, I lightly blended them together. The front of the building was a soft pink color, the roof I based in and raw sienna (golden color) and use grays and darker browns to suggest tiles on roof. The taller building I use a dark brown and my indigo to create a color for the shadowed side and a warm brown for the front of the building. I used the same colors for the roof on this building as I used on the front building.

The foreground dock I just used the warm browns, grays and golden colors and lightly blended them together. This is just an under painting for what’s to come and once I had the foreground dock block in, I blocked in the water and the pier behind the boat using dark blues, greens and purple for the color of the water under the pier and the dark browns for the piling and boards of the pier.

Once I had everything blocked in I have now reached the point where I can spray my painting with Workable Fixative. From this point I think I have most of my elements under painted and I will now start working on detail. I hope you can get your painting to this point I will see you in class.