Goings On In My Studio Today

Quick study that turns into the beginning of a painting

Right side up

In my class today we worked upside down standing on our heads. Oh did I said that that? I meant the canvas stood on its head. Thought I would pass along to you what we did. I like quick studies. They loosen me up, get me to paint with more creative strokes, and I don't get hung up on details. In today's case we are doing quick studies with a twist. We are painting with the canvas upside down working for 30 minutes total. In the case of the this image, we started the painting upside down with everyone using the image I provided. We taped the image to the wall some feet away from us so we could see it from a distance so as to get the big picture. We worked 10 min then turned both photo and painting  right side up and worked for another 10 min win the last ten upside down again. But let me start at  the beginning, we started with white Canson paper (9 x 12) which we toned up using pan pastels and what ever stick pastels we chose choosing our own colors. We worked fast with whatever strokes we wanted  using from 1-3 different colors, in my case I used red pan pastel then put  red and med to dark gray Terry Ludwig pastel sticks over it using the  broad side of the pastel. Once the paper was covered which took a minute or two we sprayed with fixative, let it dry then sprayed again to set it in (this will be  the background for the painting). Once dry, we prepared the setup putting another Canson sheet behind it to soften our strokes.  So what you see is the result of my work so far. Now, I will continue on at my leisure painting upside down and right side up until I'm finished. I find this is a good method for quick starting a painting.