Workshop with Maggie Price

"Canyon Walls" 12x9"

This week I've been really busy fine tuning my pastel technique with instructor Maggie Price. I'm learning loads and the work load is just my speed. I've produced a couple of pieces a day, so far, and I'll post them up over the course of the coming week. Since we are indoors, I have been working from reference photos (Canyon shots provided by photographer Lee Engvall) for the first 3 days, then we will move outside to do plein-aire. On our first day we worked on underpainting of pastel with Terpenoid. I've never used a solvent on my pastels, so this was a new twist for me. (I usually use an underpainting of Createx pure pigment). In the first painting, "Canyon Walls", we were instructed to use an underpainting of the underlying color of our photo, so to enhance it's color, giving it more vibrancy. I decided to use a pink for the sky, a dark, warm purple for the canyon walls, and light blue-purple for the farthest canyon wall, and a light violet for the water. If the underpainting is done successfully, then the painting nearly paints itself. Very easy!


12 x 9"
"Canyon Quiet" 12x9"

In this second piece, "Canyon Quiet", we took one hue (or color) and grabbed 5 shades, or values of that color as the underlying painting. Here I've used a warm purple as the unifying color from a light pink to a dark burgundy.