A demonstration for the Phoenix Art Guild

The dreaded seasonal cold hit the day before, so I found myself preparing well into the "YOU ARE LATE" time...

I did another of my beach kids.

What I love about this set of reference is how in the computer they all sort of seem lifeless - cute and lively but - the apparent monochrome of a beach is so deceptive until I get in there and add color.

I don't have a photo of the underpainting. Actually, I was lucky to get the paint ON The paper but the picture just started to blossom.

This is what walked out the door on Monday night.

I slept a near 24 hours full of nyquil and felt much better on Wednesday so I worked a bit to this point.

I LOVE the looseness of the pastels over color!

I think it will be titled "Foam Harvesters".
dj*

The Carribean Kid - alcohol for underpainting

I decided to rework a watercolor I had done a couple of years ago as a pastel for entry into a contest for a specific pastel brand.

Normally I use watercolor for my underpainting as a great way to make an over all neutral tone, but I wanted to make a piece completely with pastel, so I took a heavier 300# rough watercolor paper and some 95% rubbing alcohol (denatured will evaporate faster, but I was happy to have the slush time) and scrubbed over areas to push some color in the pits of the rough paper:

Laying in the painting areas, I continued with heavy scrubbing and breaking down so the coverage would allow the peaks of the paper to rub off color from the stick and the lower areas be a bit darker and more colorful:

As I went I would use a dry brush to scrub back some of the more broken areas and rewet spots to reinforce darks. This is the only way I have found that you can actually make mud when using pastel. If you blend with your sticks, you can keep clean and brilliant colors.

A detail shows the difference with the dissolved colors in the pits of the paper with the pure pastel on top:


I submitted this to the Mungyo competition on Jerry's Artarama site and just dropped it of to the Arizona State Fair as well.

Cross your fingers for me!