I'm going a little deeper into my method here. The first image is a photograph of the flowers reduced to 16 colours in Paint Shop Pro, with a 10 x 8 grid imposed (my support will be a 10 x 8 in. piece of Pastelmat).
Now you can use the colour palette in Paint Shop to make a swatch, so that the underpainting is reduced in complexity of colour although the tonal range is not altered.
I used this as basic palette to to the first sketch.
Followed by a bit of quick blending.
I usually select a subset of soft pastels to cover all potential colours and values in a painting. This is the selection, and the "nuancier". It includes Rembrandts (top left), Artisan Pastellier, Blue Earth yellows, some Schminke, and Senneliers, bottom rows.
I chose to give a pink bias to the top flower, and once done put in some background to see view the contrast. I used Sennelier dark green 177.
I decided to exaggerate the orange-yellow tints of the bottom flower.
Back to the top right, and the pinkish flowers, finish background, and sign. Job done!
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| Campsis after Rain © Niall O'Neill |
