Broken Surf - Study

 Pastel - 5x7 on UArt 600

When the winds come from on direction and them move to another, the waves can get confused and broken.  They come in and break across each other and the surf becomes choked with foam and breaking waves.

This is the final image of a process that started with a limited palette and a 20 minute timer.

I began with a simple line drawing to guide my composition.

Once I was satisfied with the basics, I selected a limited palette of mostly greens, blues, and grays of different values and intensities.

With my drawing in place and my palette selected, I set my timer for 20 minutes - 20 minutes with 20 pieces of pastel - and this is the result.

As you can see, I did very little revision from this initial painting other than to add some color and texture to the waves and foam.  

Cloud Patches

"Cloud Patches" 9x12 pastel on UArt

I've been cleaning our the mess in my garage studio, and found this painting in a stack of rejects! It had promise, so I took this old painting that failed, reworked it and basically started over. I think I'm getting the "cloud thing" going again.

My plan was to create a "path" with the clouds that would keep the eye in the painting and use the foreground marsh to direct the eye to the center of attention - lower left - where the brightest, most intense color is next to the darkest value in the painting.

Painting was revised and updated 5/7/21. Added more value and color separation.

Silver Water Marsh

Pastel on UArt 400

In the early morning before the wind comes up across the marsh, the water reflects the sky giving it a slivery sheen.  The broken, puffy clouds are the remnants of the morning fog, and hold the deep blue of the sky at bay for a few more minutes.  I wanted to capture that sense of stillness and silvery light by using cool greens and blues augmented with dashes of purple, red, and pink.  In order to keep the sense of stillness, I deliberately reduced the details in order to emphasize form and color.