Tropical Layers
Tropicale 12 x 18 Chalk pastel on paper Click here to purchase There are times when I find myself hating a piece until the very end, when it all finally starts to make sense. This usually happens when I try something a little different, and am not sure if the risk is going to pay off artistically or not. "Tropicale" was one of those pieces. Once it was complete, I was quite happy with the experiment. I used dark green Canson Mi-Teintes paper, thinking the green would blend nicely with the background. I thought I would try to exercise some patience and build the trees with layers of color. It quickly turned into a battle between the colors, and I was fighting to keep the trees from turning into mud. I finally realized that no matter how many layers of lights I added to the foliage, it wouldn't look right until I went back in with some darks. I used my almost black gray pastel, and worked in some tiny shadows to emphasize the lights. Once I was finished, I put the...