What works best for me

I definitely have a preference for a paper with a tooth! It's also preferable to me to have a paper that will accept a fixative. When I started dashing off The Virtual Paintout paintings, I was and still am, in the middle of a studio clean up. That means I have better access to my papers and more opportunities to experiment, if I choose to. Yippee!

September was the month on expimentation with my pastels! The Clouds Of Prince Edward Island was the first in this series and since I already had a piece of Wallis Sanded Paper taped to my board, when I started, I continued in that direction. I really wanted to try a combination that I had not tried before. It's not my style; generally speaking to sketch in pencil, if I am going to use pastel over it, but I tried it on this piece. I usually just sketch in a loose painting using pastel. This time, after the pencil sketch, I used watercolor, to mass in the values. This was something I had seen Richard McKinley do with great success and I wanted to give it a whirl. If my paper had been white and not the Belgian mist, I had up, it might have worked for me..... but I lost my sketch and the watercolors did not show up very well. I think I will only use the watercolors on white papers, in the future. Lesson learned!

Island Fields was painted using LeCarte Paper. The paper was a lovely golden color. I used a hard thin pastel to sketch this in and because LeCarte Paper does not take a fixative, I was a bit more careful. I normally prefer to let some of the colored paper show through, but I hesitated, not knowing how it would appear on The Virtual Paintout website. Some people like to completely cover the whole paper, but I really prefer the more spontaneous look.

The Island Treasure was fun to paint, but I had to run out and purchased pastel pencils, so I could tighten up some detail. Again, I prefer a more painterly look and I do not like to blend my pastels. I like to use them the same way I do when I paint with oils. The paper for this one was Art Spectrum and the paper color was black. I did my preliminary sketch with a light colored pastel. I usually like more black showing through, when I use a black ground, but again, I covered more, with the pastel.

All three paintings were painted using a variety of pastels and all of the papers had a tooth. If I participate next month, I intend to use the same method and paper or panel on all of them. My favorite of the three was the Island Fields and I'd be interested in your opinion.

I hope to build this site up and have more frequent postings, so check back for more information about me, as I introduce myself and tell you more about how I got here. There is more to come later.


Meanwhile, I have a couple of favorite links to share with you. I hope you enjoy them.