suggesting the scene

The start of two projects in the studio tonight using black or white acrylic paint to suggest the scene for oil or pastel work. You can read more about this process in my book, Pastel Drawing on pages 138 & 139.

At the top, two gallon jugs of water for washing out acrylic, one white, one black.

In front of the jugs are three 6x6 panels with a little reference photo to their left. The photo is my painting, "The Tender Hour." In the coming weeks, I'm going to give myself a refresher course on color and color temperature by painting in oil on the three little panels - basically the same scene on each. The panel at far left was black so I used white acrylic to suggest the scene, the other two are white so I used black acrylic. The acrylic "scene suggestion" layer will get covered with oil paint.

Foremost in the photo is a pastel painting from a couple years ago that I washed off and to the left of it, is a reference photo of the scene I plan to paint. The pastel surface is Wallis mounted on archival foam core. I suggested the scene on the Wallis with black acrylic paint. I'll use pastel on top of that.