Winter Pines

Winter Pines

5" x 7"

Rembrandt pastels on Bee Bogus Recycled Rough sketch paper

Photo reference by PaintBoss on WetCanvas.com

A third painting for the September 2014 Pastel Spotlight challenge, "Blue." This photo reference was posted as part of the lesson showing a variety of hues, the surface of the snow was distinctly lighter and more purplish than the somewhat green-cast blue sky. I enhanced those differences a bit but the camera really pushed it farther. Light patches on the snow field were fun, the shadows of other trees were making that foreground area interesting. 

I'd worked out how to do snow laden pines years and years ago while playing with colored pencils, distinctly remembered doing a Christmas card design with them as my first successful snow covered pines. This time I got much more colorful working with pastels and sketched just the darks in the pines in with charcoal, then got at the rest entirely with pastels. As usual on unsanded paper I did some finger blending in early layers, then finished by rough layers of side strokes and heavier strokes over it.