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| Group of trees 1 - pastel |
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| Group of trees after adjustments |
I tend to feel that things can get out of control so easily when I use soft pastel, ending up in a powdery mess on the paper, so I had a bit of a battle to overcome my fear with this drawing (study of several trees) but after I had finished, I think it had helped to restore my confidence a little. I think it is potentially a good medium to convey soft tones and aerial perspective and I might even use it again, for a subject such as this.
Despite hours more work on it, I'm not at all sure I made much improvement to this drawing. Although enlarging both version by clicking on them shows up the differences quite well. There was a lot of light filtering through the trees from the left and I tried to depict this more convincingly but it now appears a little washed out around the middle section, although the light glows more in the background (lower right), so I'm pleased with that at least. Perhaps I went overboard with the white and grey. I tried to vary the tones further but somehow the photograph doesn't seem to illustrated this. The greens and yellows look rather too acidic. I can see more depth of tone here and there but it doesn't appear to have a great deal of impact. Perhaps using a toned ground would have helped to give the colours more impact. I will try to bear that in mind next time I do a pastel drawing. What I found remarkable was how dramatically the experience boosted my confidence when I came to the later adjustments on the Still Life Natural Forms in Assignment 1.
Despite hours more work on it, I'm not at all sure I made much improvement to this drawing. Although enlarging both version by clicking on them shows up the differences quite well. There was a lot of light filtering through the trees from the left and I tried to depict this more convincingly but it now appears a little washed out around the middle section, although the light glows more in the background (lower right), so I'm pleased with that at least. Perhaps I went overboard with the white and grey. I tried to vary the tones further but somehow the photograph doesn't seem to illustrated this. The greens and yellows look rather too acidic. I can see more depth of tone here and there but it doesn't appear to have a great deal of impact. Perhaps using a toned ground would have helped to give the colours more impact. I will try to bear that in mind next time I do a pastel drawing. What I found remarkable was how dramatically the experience boosted my confidence when I came to the later adjustments on the Still Life Natural Forms in Assignment 1.
