Peach Amaryllis in soft pastels

  Peach Amaryllis painting by Marion Hedger

40x50cm (16"x20") soft pastels on sanded card

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This painting is from a photo I took at a local village flower festival, where the entire village was decked out in flowers including all the rooms in the chateau. These amarylis were hanging up-side-down along the large sweeping staircase - a truly breathtaking display.

Sunflower Fire

Sunflower Fire30x40cm soft pastel on sanded card.



 This painting is also from another challenge on Wetcanvas.com and thank you to Kay (KreativeK) for providing it.


I know I said that I was no longer painting with soft pastels, but I keep getting drawn back in to using them and the strong colours in the reference shouted soft pastels at me. I discovered some Sennelier fine sanded card in my cupboard which I had purchased way back and actually forgotton I had.
As usual, I started out by blocking in the lights and darks. I used Neocolor II soluble crayons as an underpainting. I've been using these a lot just lately regardless of medium, they have a lot of pigment in and I find that they give a very good underpainting. I usually use water to wash the pigment in, but then remembered the Sennelier surface doesn't like water, so I used alcohol instead. The wash came out darker than I expected it to and was not quite so easy to create as I am used to. Recently I have been using Fischer sanded card and this accepts water and my washes are normally lighter.

Sunflower Fire stage 1 -

I used cool colours for the shadows and lights for the highlights. In my florals I like to use yellow for underpainting my main highlights. I think you can see that the wash was not so successful on this ground and it looks very dark and messy.

 

Sunflower Fire - stage 2.

Blocking in with local colour - not looking quite so messy now.

 

Sunflower Fire - stage 3

More colour added - trying to find those subtle shifts of light and darks. Taking shape at this stage. 

Sunflower Fire - completed.

I continued layering colours and breaking up the blocks of colour until I was happy. I knocked back the background sunflower as it was competing with the star of the show. The final touches was the speck on the sunflower head, which I achieved by grating some yellow, dark red and orange pastel over it, covering it with a piece of paper and applying pressure to adhere the particles.

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'Sunflower Fire' Poster by Marionsart
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Sunflowers Ceramic Coffee Mug by Marionsart
Design large coffee mugs with zazzle

Flower studies in pastels

I challenged myself by setting a time limit for these two studies. I allowed myself 20 minutes for each.

I wanted to see if I could achieve a nice loose painterly feel, which I think I have managed. Both of these studies are in soft pastel, on Fisher sanded paper. Both are 20x20cm (8"x8").

The pink rudbeckia painting is my favourite as I love that combination of the pink with the turquoise and I like the lively feel of this one.

I have used this image to create a blank art card available from GCU
Pink Rudbecka Fine Art Card

The mimosa painting was looking a bit dull and I wondered what could be done to liven it up. I remembered a tip I'd been given by another wet canvas member (colorix). Using a grater I grated some soft pastel in yellow and dark green over the painting. This was very effective. I was surprised about how effective this was. A little bit, went a long way. I then pressed the gratings into the paper by applying pressure to a piece of tracing paper laid over the top. The 'bits' have stayed firmly in place.

Mimosa is grown here commercially on the Cote d'azur mainly for the perfume industry in Grasse. In late January/beginning February the hills around Cannes are covered in yellow. A wonderful sight.

I have used this image to create a blank art card available from GCU Mimosa Fine Art Card