This is the under drawing using a dry pastel media and a little charcoal to outline the initial image. Since this is a winter scene I'm using lighter hues and white. This is necessary as I start to use rubbing alcohol to spread the color around it on the paper it darkens a bit.
You can see here that I'm using a half inch wide flat headed Bristol brush on the sky. You can see the alcohol mixing with the dry pastel with the hue darkening up. You have to be careful to clean your brush after about 3-4 brush strokes. The alcohol cleans the pigment from the brush quite easily so it not a huge problem. The cleaning permits you to keep each hue some what separated on the paper. In other word the white remains white and the blue remains its own color. There is some mixing of the colors along the edges where they meet which is a good thing at times.
In this close up you can see how the colors remain separated and how some of the edges will actually mix together. As you can see I'm also using the direction of the brush strokes to add to the drama of the sky.The directional aspects of a brush is a very important way to add drama to any work.
This is the finished under painting and must dry for about 30 minutes before moving on to the next layer of pastel. I left some areas untouched by the alcohol to denote sky holes or snow on a branch. Again don't feel like you need to fill in all areas of the under painting with a color, white space adds a very powerful design element...sometime less is more. Tomorrow I begin the next stage of this painting by adding some details.
Back at the drawing board tonight to work out the next stage in completing this drawing. At this point I start working on the tree tops working my way down the drawing. At times I will do a little work in the sky but for the most part stayed on rendering each branch on the trees. A mug of hot tea and music on my iPod helps to pass the time.
You can see here that I've worked all the way down the trees; there is still much to do on the tree on the far right. Thinking the sky is pretty much finished, perhaps it needs a hint of light yellow in the colors and an accent on the tree tops. In any event one more evening on this drawing and it will be complete.
