by Bethany | April 15, 2020

Happy Wednesday my friends!

For today’s video share, I wanted to post a Fall landscape I painted last year for my Patreon students. This is from a reference from beautiful Palo Duro Canyon – the second largest canyon in the United States! I feel very blessed to live a short 20 minutes away from this wild and amazing state park and have grown up in the shadow of its walls. Just watch out for cactus and other critters!

For this painting, I work on an underpainting using alcohol and my favorite blue Nupastel. I weave together warm and cool hues in a variety of pastel brands. My soft pastel palette and photo reference are below.

Watch the video by clicking below! It’s about 30 minutes long.

I am using 500 grit unmounted Uart sanded pastel paper. I have it taped to my backer board using regular masking tape. It’s about 9×12.

The regular masking tape doesn’t cast color onto the paper (like regular painters tape does) and is nice and neutral. It also doesn’t tear the Uart paper when I remove it or leave a sticky residue! I usually trim off the area that is underneath the tape anyway so I have a nice clean edge.

My first step in this painting was to sketch in the major shapes using a graphite pencil. I usually use a mechanical pencil because it never needs sharpening! The sanded paper wears down normal pencils very easily. I also swiped in my favorite blue Nupastel for the shadow and darker areas of the painting. I then washed it in with rubbing alcohol (surgical spirits).

I wanted to bring in some beautiful fall color and warmth to this scene – especially in the tree forms on the right. Here you can see I’m beginning to weave in some ochre and orange and some cooler greens in the grass areas. I decided to extend my shadow shape (as opposed to what the reference image tells) across the left hand grassy area.

Lots of stuff is going in! More color in the grass and distant field, “light” in the path, and distant canyon wall. I want the canyon wall to recede so chose to use very cool colors. This pushes the distance away.

I’m also beginning to add some nuance to the distant tree line.

I’m playing with my sky colors here. I love to add soft cream and yellows in the sky especially when I’m painting with warm colors in the foreground. This helps these two elements get along and play with each other.

Adding the black tape helps me “see” the painting, its values, and any problems I need to correct. I decided to change the shape of the distant wall a bit.

Here is the finished piece once again:

Thank you all for watching! I hope you have fun with this painting. I’ll be posting another soon! In the meantime, if you’d like to watch a year’s worth of videos plus tons of information blogs and art lessons, you can subscribe to my patreon here.

Now, go forth and paint! Let’s spread joy and light.

xoxo,

Bethany