u/fleeting-light-1216

This is my latest, it’s on 12x16” watercolour paper with three coats of Golden pastel ground. I lightly sanded the last coat. I was quite happy with the surface and was able to add a lot of layers.

Out of my small range of Senneliers, I had exactly the colours I needed, but of course I still need way more for future paintings. And I definitely need more blues for sky, my blues are really vibrant, it was a challenge to tone them down. Can you ever have enough pastels?

My pond is finally finished! It’s been through several stages including one enlargement and three liners, and now it’s done. Next summer when the plants have grown bigger it will look pretty lush I think; my tropical oasis in the middle of a freezing cold prairie. One of my plants Is missing because it got stomped on too many times, I’m hoping it comes back next spring. I might make a bog filter next spring but I’m not really sure how to fit one in that will look like it belongs there. There isn’t much space.

It’s a small pond, couldn’t make it any bigger, but I love it. So much better than lawn.

The pond rebuild is getting a lot closer to being finished. But now all these big rounded rocks are in place I feel like the waterfall is kind of dwarfed and I’m not really a fan of the dark rocks but they are the only rocks I have on hand. Of course it might look more balanced when more rocks are stacked up at the sides. But I would welcome any advice or suggestions.

The ostrich fern will get planted on a little hill to the side of the falls with purple coral bells next to that. Then there’s a stepping stone leading to steps on the pond shelves. So the waterfall has limited space. I don’t think I really want it bigger but maybe I need chunkier rocks for the cascades? It can’t go too high or any wider. I just want it to look like it belongs there. Right now it’s a first draft, I set up before we got the new rocks.

This is my second wildlife portrait in soft pastels. I really think soft pastels are my favourite medium now. They feel easier for me than anything else I’ve tried.

I made this first little pond a couple of years ago. The birds like to drink from it. We are currently rebuilding the backyard pond that the robin bathed in last summer so the mini pond was the next best option for a bath. I still like this little pond but I can’t wait to finish my bigger one.

I applied Golden pastel ground to a piece of plywood to see what that would be like compared to paper. I don’t know if I did it right because it seemed to smudge a lot more and I felt like I just kept reapplying what I’d already done. Not sure if this will last or if I should dare spray fixative (all I could get was Krylon workable fixative).

I prefer pastelmat. But I’d love any tips on using pastel ground.

I felt really limited with so few colours for this one, I never seemed to have the right one and had to combine what I had on the board. And I have so few soft ones… only a couple of my Senneliers were useful and I was pretty much restricted to my Mungyos. My Carbothello pencils didn’t work well on the ground at all. I think I need a lot more very soft sticks.

… and Pastelmat!

I splurged and bought the full set of 60 Stabilo Carbothello pencils and a pad of Pastelmat. I wanted to try wildlife portraits.

This is done with a mix of soft pastels sticks and pencils. I don’t think I nailed the background, I tried for soft and dreamy but couldn’t quite get there. I’m pretty happy with the rest considering it’s only my third soft pastel painting and first wildlife one.

Apple photos thinks it’s a beaver lol so perhaps I failed.

Title options are “Morant” or “Do not disturb” or a more generic “Grizzly cub at rest”. Can’t decide.

I just finished my second soft pastel painting. I’ve packed them away so I stop fiddling. My thumb is very swollen, as usual I find something I love doing and my body complains about it. Guess I’m back to oil painting for a while.