by Bethany | May 6, 2020

Today’s video lesson on my Youtube (and a past Patreon video live stream session) is of a beautiful marsh scene. Since this is a livestream I’m reposting, it is a bit longer than my other lessons.

My palette (below) is a mix of warm for the marsh grass areas and cool dark blues for the distant tree line. I also utilize an alcohol wash underpainting in the beginning stages.

I am painting on a cut piece of Uart 500 grit paper. I have a large roll I purchased from Dakota Pastels . This allows me to cut and paint different sized pieces and is a very economical way to paint often! This painting is approximately size 14 x 8″

Watch the video by clicking below! It’s about an hour long.

I almost always begin with a graphite pencil sketch. I love to use a regular mechanical pencil as they never need resharpening. The sanded paper wears regular pencils down almost immediately. I lightly sketch in my major shapes and elements and this will get washed out and covered by subsequent layers of pastel.

Marsh scenes are usually composed of very simple lines. Keeping the underpainting simple and understand will help support the areas I want to be in focus.

Here is my pastel all washed in and prepped for my dry pastel layers!

I began by adding dark and cool values to the distant tree line and layering on my bright pops of green over the orange grass underpainting.

Adding these thick chunky marks of blue were so fun!

Placing a loose sky and working on the grasses almost finishes this piece!

Here is the finished piece once again:

Thank you all for watching! I hope you have fun with this painting. I’m hoping to release one of these every couple of weeks! I enjoy going back to revisit these older lessons. This is a favorite from last year and the video is full of little nuggets of painting know-how.

My full Patreon Video Index is here for those who’d like to see what lessons are available to watch. I appreciate all your support, encouragement, emails, your notes, comments and of course, your paintings! If you paint along with this, please refer back to this lesson! It helps me continue to post these lessons (and more) for you. I thank you so much.

Be well, stay safe; I hope you are finding joy in painting and creating!

xoxo,

Bethany