- Soft pastel - 24x18"/61x45.7cm
We are always exclaiming at how fantastic the light is when we go hiking here in Taiwan. Still, when I see my photographs afterwards, they seem darker and more somber than what we felt when we were there.
I've been trying to capture the luminosity of the Taiwanese forest interior. This time, I decided to do something I almost never do: keep the value range "high key." I also pushed the color pretty drastically. I've been thinking about trying this for some time. I've had this bright blue paper that really isn't good for what I thought it would be; it's slightly greenish tint makes every white look kind of yellow next to it. I knew it had to be good for something, if I could only figure out how to use it correctly.
I blocked in the basic values and got the drawing right, and then did what I often find myself doing with my pastel paintings: I wiped it all off. It leaves just a ghost image behind which then frees me up to work on color and value without having to think too much about the drawing again. I think I wiped this one off twice, actually. Since I am not heavy-handed with the pastels (most of the time), I'm not really wasting too much of these wonderful sticks of color. At some point, I started working the color, laying down as little as possible and saving the highlights till the very end. I spent more time working the color than the values this time. I usually find myself working the details more, but I also avoided that this time, too.
All in all, I'm happy with the result. I think I came the closest to what it feels like to be out on the trail in the steep Taiwanese hills, climbing those massive basalt or andesite steps as the sun filters through the forest canopy overhead.
Again, it was nice to work on this larger size! It made the strokes so much easier to do, and the suggestion of detail was just a joy!
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