Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Healesville Sanctuary-What's that? WIP










I went to Healesville sanctuary on a school excursion recently to see "The disappearing froglet" with my son. There were a variety of schools involved. The kids had to go and learn about the environment and how pollution is affecting the frogs habitat. Great day but freezing cold. I didn't warm up until I went to bed that night.

Preliminary sketch to the left with ?finished work on right.
The focus is the boy in yellow and I have incorporated some of the yellow in the grasses. The children are all looking at a wallabie that is hiding in the scrub. I liked the pose of the yellow boy, with all the children looking for the allusive wallabie. I had lots of fun with the grasses. I added blues, and purples to create movement and interest.
I have revised this picture thanks to pastle guy's comments and have muted the background.

5 comments:

Holly Zemak said...

Nice to see both the initial and completed painting. I like the colors you used in the grasses. That is what I love about pastels, that rich color that just pops.

PastelGuy said...

Kay,

Thanks so much for your continued comments and support of my blog! Actually, I do teach English, too (just not art!). I'm always tying to get my students to journal, so I thought I'd better take my own advice...

I like your new work. The movement in the grasses is great. I might have made more temperature differentiation between the foreground and the background, however. The movement of the central figure is wonderful, too, especially after seeing the preliminary sketches. Do you think maybe lowering the warm-colored horizon line away from his face might make it more effective?

magicmyst said...

Thanks Matthew, Great advice I think I will work on those ideas in my painting. I will post revised edition when done.

PastelGuy said...

I'm glad you took my advice in the right light. It seems like everyone on the art blogs just says nicey-nice things, when I know I would appreciate constructive criticism, too. It must be the teacher in me...:)

Wendi. S. said...

Hi Kay. Sorry, this pic is worrying me. The bottom right hand corner, all the grasses and the pastel technique youve used to denote grasses seems to drag my eyes down with it. To me it looks like the kids are standing on a cliff and the bottom corner is just dropping off. can you not do blocks of colour and then just suggest the grasses with a fleck here and there??