The Color of Light: An Artist's Blog

I love working on a toned ground. It not only adds depth to a painting, it does a lot of the work. A great example is this piece I recently completed. It's a view of my house in the morning, looking down from a grove of trees in the front yard. 

I decided to try out a new paper I'd never used before, Pastel Premiere. While it is quite abrasive and ate up my pastels, I really enjoyed how it grabbed the pigment. And I loved in particular the vibrant red tone of this paper. I allowed areas of the red color to shine through in the final piece, expecially in the area of interest - the house. 

It works to have those bits of red shining though in areas (see the the upper window and around the garage doors) because while it is not the local color  the actual color of the object), it is a similar value. So I was able to let a bit of that unexpected red peek through while still keeping the value structure believable.