Sky Holes

For my students this week, I gave a short demonstration on how I paint trees. They wanted to know how to paint one without painting every leaf. On this day, we had heavy overcast -- just perfect to see the tree shapes against the sky!

I picked out one of the tall firs in our field. Using pastel, I painted it with my darkest green and a bit of dark magenta. I just blocked in the basic big shape. Next, I painted the sky with very light blues and pinks. With these colors, I adjusted the shapes of the boughs by painting the negative space around them. I also added dots of light where the "sky holes"are. To darken the smaller sky holes, I smudged the pastel a bit with my finger. Finally, I added lighter, green accents to the tops of the boughs to give them more form. Piece of cake!

"Fir in the Field"
5x7, pastel, en plein air