Art in the Making by Jenny Armitage

Dusk Falls on the Pumice Field (11 x 18) $175

This is my second pastel.  The subject is the pumice field on the west side of Crater Lake National Park, Oregon.  The light was beautiful and I loved the way it lit up the wildflowers in the foreground, which are visually insignificant at mid day.

The support is once again Canson Mi-Teiten paper.  This time I used the rough side.

I began at the top with PanPastels’ ultramarine blue, ultramarine blue tint, burnt sienna tint and white.  The rosy hills are mostly PanPastel too.   I used magenta, violet tint, burnt sienna, burnt sienna pint, and finally a stick of purple pink soft pastel.

The tree lines are soft pastels in various combinations of an ultramarine shade, a phthalo blue, a iron oxide stick and a dark green.  The grass and pumice fields are various combinations of burnt umber, red oxide, burnt sienna in PanPastel and soft pastel sticks.  I added the gold light last soft pastel.

I added the shadowy path leading out  the foreground with purples and blue soft pastel smudged over the pumice field.

I began the red flowers by using a soft  purple pastel stick  to make dark bases for them.  I smudged the bases in and them added PanPastel red plus a little PanPastel yellow and smudged again.  I accented  them with hard yellow pastel.

For the blue flowers I made a darker purple base and drew thin marks over it in light turqouse blue which I half smudged.  Then I added blue squiggles again and again half smudged.

Or purchase a print from Fine Art America.com.

Reeds at Sunset (11 x 15) $75.00

This is the Willamette again, but it could really be anywhere.  I was struck by the way the reeds look like they are growing out of a sunset.

Like the Broken Dock I painted a couple days ago, I began this painting by masking everything except the water.  After the mask on the reeds dried, I painting the sky’s refection on the still water wet into wet beginning with an overall wash of very diluted burnt sienna.   When the shine left the paper, I added various mixes of quinacridone deep red rose and new gamgee (yellow).  I used cobalt blue and burnt sienna to ad the darker clouds and phthalo blue for the water.

Once the  sky had dried, I removed the mask and painted the reeds in new gamgee, colalt blue, phthalo blue and burnt sienna.

Or purchase a print from Fine Art America.com.

Brown Minto Park is one of our local haunts. The park boarders the Willamette on one side and a truck farm on the other. Bicycle trials, bark dust trails, and a dog park lie within it’s boarders. The park has forest, field, and playground. A rather civilized asphalt trail runs along the Willamette. A shorter trail from the playground once led to this dock. The dock was falling down even when I first saw it. Now it has gone the way of all things. But I miss it.

My photo showed real sunset with only a silhouette of the trees and dock left. I turned back the clock about a quarter of an hour to show the island trees and more of the decrepit dock.

The palette is cobalt blue, phthalo blue, dioxazine purple, quinacridone deep red rose, burnt sienna, and new gamgee.

I masked the dock before painting. Then I began with the sky and water working wet into wet. When the sky and water dried I added the far bank and it’s reflection working wet on dry but, still doing much of the mixing on the paper rather than on the palette. To give the foreground bank it’s texture, I salted the paint while it was still damp. The effect was a little stronger than I wanted so I gave it a final wash of phthalo blue. Finally I removed the mask and painted in the dock and it’s reflection.

Or purchase a print from Fine Art America.