Winter 2016 Pastel Class

Winter 2016 Pastel Class: Cozy Cottage Week 2

In our last class we got started on the underpainting for most of the snow in the background, along with distant trees and under painting the cottage, this week we continued to get under color for the rest of the painting and working on the reflection.

The first thing I did was I took a cream colored chalk - it's not quite white but it will look white in the distance - and I went over some of the area behind the house in a sketchy way. You don't want to cover up all the softer purples and blues that you have there you're just adding a little bit of a lighter color then gently blend in, we need to do this before the next step.

Next, I put the two bare, deciduous trees that are alongside the cottage into my painting. I used a very grey, medium brown for the base color of the tree and then I took my indigo, which is a dark blue grey, and put in the shadows side. You might want practice this first drawing the trees and the branches if you have hard pastels they may work better or if you have pastel pencils you can use that but practice before you get on your painting, remember: it's not a nice carved statue it is a natural tree and the branches go in all directions.

The reflection in the water takes a bit more explaining than adding the base to the snow. First off, a reflection that you see in the water is not like a mirror reflection: It is reflecting what it can see that is above it so only parts of the house may show up in the water but none of the pine trees that are behind it. To determine what is going to show in your reflections either by measuring with your fingers or by using the handle of a brush or pencil put the end of the handle at one point on the cabin’s roof like the chimney and then mark the bottom of the house with your fingers then move the top end of your brush down to the bottom of your house and see where your fingers touch in the water area, that will be where the top of your chimney will show in the water. The pine trees are on a different plane in your painting then the house, the bottoms of the pine trees are probably, if we could see them, about midway up the house if you've made your tree is very tall use that same way to measure but make sure that you stop the bottom of the tree about midway of the house and then move your handle down to midway of the house and see if the top of the tree is going to show over the top of the roof, probably not but if it does you can put it in.

You may want to put a general shape in the water area where the house is going to be it doesn't need to be exact this is frozen water it's going to distort the image above it so don't worry about putting an exact replication in your water it will look a lot more natural if you don't.

You want to use similar colors that you used for your house and in your sky in your reflection but instead of trying to do an accurate drawing just pull those colors straight down very vertical to the sides of your painting to create a general shape of the house. Also pull the colors of the sky straight down they can even blend a little bit with the house because of the distortion from the ice. Once you have gotten your colors in gently blend again very lightly, pulling straight down with your fingers or a stumpy. Lightly blend the sky and the roofline of your house together so there are no hard edges we can come back in later if we need to, to brighten colors but remember anytime you have a reflection it is going to be a little bit darker than the thing it is reflecting because it is polarized light.

Next, you need to base in the rest of the snow shadows in the road, around the house, over the bushes and the fences and you're going to need the lightest blues and the lightest purples that you have. I have some very light soft blues and lavenders but if you don't have those you will need to use white. You can start with white and add in little bits of the blues and the purples and then blend them together to create very soft pastel colors or you can put the color down the blue or the purple just a little bit just not too heavy, blend them together it get softer colors. If you have some soft grey colors you can also use those as well look, at the picture and note where you see the shadows such as around the house, behind the house, in the road the ruts, on the road are shadows… Be aware there is also the shape going on: There they are long flat shapes around the house and road; also there are “U” shapes in the ruts of the road as well as lumps and bumps along the sides of the road. Your strokes need to follow the shape of what you are trying to paint, the more and varied strokes you have the better your painting will look.

I had a basic watercolor sketch on my mat board to follow and for the most part I am following it but if I need to make changes I do so don't feel if you have put a drawing down or a water color sketch down that you have to follow it exactly you do not, if you need to make adjustments go right ahead and make adjustments but try to get as much of the shadows for the snow in we will be working on some of the detail next week and this needs to be done so keep painting and I will see you in class.