Upsized Postcard: No 105

Life by the River

When an artist enters paintings in an exhibition which she has not yet painted then the pressure is on!

I’ve been very busy painting a mural and some commissions so hadn’t finished one of the paintings I intended to enter into the Kingborough Art Prize and hadn’t even started the second one when the entry close off date rolled around. I did have an idea of what I planned to paint so that was a start.

Today I got stuck in and have almost finished a large pastel based on the mini postcard No 92. I still haven’t put in the two figures …well I did put one in but it was awful so I scrubbed it out and will have another go tomorrow.

The pastel is much brighter, more colourful and has a lot more detail and texture in the foliage. I do like the deep shadows in the original sketch but I wanted to explore the grasses and other greenery a bit more in this larger painting so I dialled the shadows back a bit.

They had two different moods …this one is a sunnier, summery version. I just have to work on the path. The shape is not quite right and I plan to bump out the left hand side into a bit more of a curve.

Tomorrow I’m teaching a pastel class so a day away from it will help crystallize what I would like to change or add. There’s still some work to be done but I was happy to get it to this stage today.

Lindy Whitton Studio