30 Minute Series Painting- first pastel

Having featured the reference photo for this painting in a previous post on Creating a series and again for the photography 101 Cropping assignment I thought I should post my first painting in a series I intend to do based on a single photo.

As part of a personal challenge I want to limit the painting time to 30 minutes and video them for my You Tube channel

Here’s the photo alongside  the first painting and the video is in process.

Cliff reflections

Shadows on the beach

Artistic interpretation

You’ll notice there are some major differences between the finished painting and the reference photo. I’ve ramped up the colours in the shadows which I’m pretty happy with although I think I might revisit and refine the shadow shapes a bit. The cliff is also a bit more colourful with some added orange accents that repeat in the reflections. The cliff slopes down a bit much on the left and needs a bit of a fix here as it tends to pull the eye out of the painting at this point.

What have I learned for next time?

Every painting teaches me something and when I go back for the next in this series I’ll be comfortable with the palette of colours I’ll be using. I’ll have noticed the tendency to let the cliff run out of the frame and will put a stop to that early! And I’ve made the trees a bit too orange so will nip that in the bud as well. Overall I’m satisfied – it was fun to paint, I kept to the 30 minutes, the shadows are nicely complex and I’m ready for the next one! I’ll keep you posted.

All paintings are available for sale in my Etsy shop unless marked as sold.