Malayavanta Hill, In Oil Pastel

Oil pastel paintings are (for me, for now) faster than watercolours, so are the ideal choice when I want to create a second work in a single day. Ā Because I need to start practising landscapes with the pastels, I thought I’d have a go at painting the same scene that I’d just done in watercolour.

As usual, there’s not much to say about how I did this one. Ā I drew a pencil outline, rubbed in the sky with pastels on their sides, blended it all with my finger. Ā Filled in the rest with dabs in multiple colours, trying to put dabs in places where there weren’t already dabs. Ā Went for darker colours in shadowy areas. Ā Blended the colours with my finger. Ā Where I didnā€™t like the resulting colours, I added corrective colours on top and blended them in. Ā And I finished with some scraping where I wanted textures, highlights or whatever.
All the usual techniques really. Ā I guess the only thing worth mentioning is that I did also drop some crazy impressionistic colours into the rocks. Ā And where my rock colours accidentally went into the sky, I put white over the top and blended it in.
Comparing this to my earlier watercolour, the rocks definitely have more bulk to them – they’re three dimensional. Ā Does this mean I’m already better at pastels than at watercolours? Ā Does that say something about my watercolour ability? Ā Or about my potential with oil pastels? Ā This one is the first oil pastel painting to go up for sale – the one sold at the church auction doesn’t count.

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