Building a foundation...

It is hard for me to post a painting at this stage, but it is important. Building a foundation for a good painting means it has to go through an "ugly" stage. You can not build a house on sand, and you can not build a painting any differently. The hardest thing an artist has to do is push past this stage and see that you are building a foundation for a great painting. This is a painting that relies heavily on light, and to make that light believable, I have to lay down colors that will show in later layers. I wanted to post this for those of you that get to this stage and tell yourselves that it is just not going to work...hang in there. It will work, as pastel artists, we have to lay down the colors that will "peek" through after you put the layers on top of it. This is about 5 hours of work today, and hopefully I can push through this stage and make it work....

The strongest ally you have in a painting is your drawing. If you don't know how to draw, you can not make a painting work. I am relying heavily on my drawing skills at this point...my initial value sketch is what is going to push me to the end of this painting. Take the time to do value sketches and solve those problems first, then tackle the colors later. If you don't do that, then you are doomed from the start. Values are your friend, embrace them and put them into your paintings or they will fall flat...literally.