Untitled Basic Track

The nights are fair drawin’ in and the days are getting colder. I thought it was cold enough today to dig out the oil pastels again. I’ve not used them for a few months as they’re too melty when it’s warm outside. I picked. So I picked a simple view of Queendown Warren to get me started and named the painting after a track recorded by Jimi Hendrix.

I started by putting down a rough outline of the big shapes in oil pastel. I didn’t use a grid or anything like that: this one was simple enough to draw completely freehand. I worked from the back to the front, just putting on whichever colours felt right and then smoothing them out. I stared with the sky and it worked out really well, in terms of both colour and texture. I did all the smoothing around the cloud using a colour shaper, something I’ve learned to do from using soft pastels. I also used the colour shaper on the distant rows of trees, looking for a soft top edge.

For the big foreground grassy areas, I started by putting down horizontal marks and smoothing them horizontally but, unsurprisingly, ended up with something looking a bit stripy. So I went over them again with vertical strikes and smoothed them out horizontally. That was better.

Eventually I filled up all the paper and took a step back. I decided that my tree on the right was too detailed for a middleground feature, being made up of lots of stabbed in leafy shapes, so I smoothed all the marks out. It looked better immediately – that was a quick correction.

I had more trouble with the tree on the left, and kept switching between detailed and smooth. I ended up adding a lot of paint and everything was starting to look muddy. So I scraped off as much as I could and started again. I eventually settled on smoothed out colours but with a little bit of detail and some light values. I ended up with something that stood out a little against what was behind it, while not creating a jarring contrast with the rest of the painting.

I then packed up the oil pastels and scratched in some foreground grasses and that was me done.

I ended up with green fingers and had to use white spirit to clean myself up. I don’t remember getting this messy before. Maybe my recent experience with soft pastels is making me messier. I did draw in places with the edges of the pastels and it can’t be long before I remove the paper sleeves and snap them all in two.

As for the final painting, I’m quite happy. It’s one of my better oil pastel landscapes. It’s up for sale and is in the queue for display at the Rose & Crown. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this one go quickly.