Dappled Path BIG completed

Course of Events, pastel, 24 x18 inches

Ta-duh! Done. I'm very pleased with the large version re-painting of Dappled Path. It has been renamed Course of Events. The six small studies were extremely helpful! I ended up using the first one as my reference (shown below).

The loose and spontaneous feeling of the small study is difficult to capture in a large format primarily because I am working with a small piece of pastel. On a small study, one lively stroke of the pastel stick might cover 10% of the total area giving a nice swath of color. On a 24 x 18 format, the coverage is so much less that it makes me feel like I'm working with the point of a pencil. Now I see why those gigantic pastel sticks were invented and I might have to invest in some.

These small studies have received a very warm welcome; my thanks to the three collectors who have given Study #7, #6 and #5 a new home. I have two more to post on Daily Paintworks for sale. I will keep the one above and plan to frame it in a 7x5 inch frame directly against the glass. No mat but the border of the paper will show.

Added Note: A known French method of framing pastels is with the pastel directly against the glass. I have used this method for my own collection and find it works great as long as there is no movement - everything in the frame has to be stationary. I mentioned that I would frame my small study in this method - both because it is small and because it is mine. Try it on one of your own works and see what you think. Note: this applies to UNMATTED work. Don’t put a mat directly against a pastel - you will have a dirty mat. Presently, all my gallery work in pastel is framed with spacers behind the mat or, if there is no mat, there are spacers inside the frame to hold the glass away from the painting.