up to 27 now

[sundiver]

These (25th, 26th and 27th plein airs) are just 1-hour pochades and nothing special, but I so enjoyed doing them! I'm inspired by the beautiful work I see here and hope that by the time I hit 100 plein airs some of mine will be like that too.
Oil pastels are a good medium for plein air sketches; portable, light, no need for brushes or solvents. The down side is that it's difficult to put vibrant, light colors on top of darker or duller colors, and the result can look pasty. In studio I can plan and control that better.
first one's 5x7

8x10 on mattboard

8x10 on Canson I think this was a bit more than an hour. There was some pale sun when I started but the cloud cover got thicker as I worked.

Thank you for looking. Advice and comments are welcome.

[CarlyHardy]

All three capture the atmosphere of the time of day you were painting. I also notice how your compostion became more complex toward the third painting too! Keep 'em coming!
carly

[Bobbo]

all good stuff !!

can't wait till you hit 50....
they don't look dull at all to me
I also like the changing light fom painting to painting,
wich is one of the best things about painting outside.

I'll keep counting with you!!

[blondheim12]

These are lovely.

Love,
Linda

[LarrySeiler]

this last one appears a real winner to my eye. Nice sense of depth pushing those cools back, good use of values...

I wonder too...using pastels over an acrylic underpainting myself, if oil pastels could not be used this way too...and then perhaps avoid the problem of putting light over dark. Might want to experiment with it. Acrylics dry very quickly...and could be worked into the routine on location.

lookin' good though...keep it up!

Larry

[Eugene Veszely]

27% of the way there !! Keep it up

[JamieWG]

Hey, Wendy, you are more than 1/4 of the way there! I like all of these. First is my fave; I'm a sucker for old barns.

Jamie

[Ruth]

All three show a lovely use of broken color, that is, letting the bottom layer of color show through the top layer. It gives a lively sparkling effect. I admire anyone who can use oil pastels, I found them very frustrating. Keep up the good work!

Ruth

[bigflea]

I think they are all very good.

They each show the kind of light and atmosphere by using color differences present in the light key.

The third one has alot of volume in the foreground, yet it holds a position of being in our periphery of vision, out of the focal plane or area. The windows in the barn are dark values, yet not so dark that our eye is drawn away from the flow of light in the composition.

Seems like really good seeing to me.
bigflea

[sundiver]

Thank you all for your encouraging comments!

Originally posted by LarrySeiler
I wonder too...using pastels over an acrylic underpainting myself, if oil pastels could not be used this way too...
Larry

I use various forms of underpainting when I work in studio. The acrylics would work in a plein air situation when I have time enough to work with them, which I usually don't. Maybe in the summer...
However I recently saw an article in the Pastel Journal advocating the use of Prismacolor markers as an underpainting for pastels, so will be trying that out.
Wendy