Reaching for the Sky - Pastel Painting of Saguaros

I am finally able to share this pastel painting of Arizona saguaros. This painting is from several photos, trying to get some interesting shapes and background. Roger, Gene's brother, took a whole bunch of photos for me and I had some old ones. There are some saguaros with the weirdest arms going in all directions, but "odd" shapes are not the best for paintings. It is like finding a carrot that is out of shape, if you paint it, no one says that is a lovely painting, they say, "What a weird thing, is it supposed to be a carrot?" Therefore, the challenge to paint saguaros that make sense but are not identical and too unusual.

This is painted on sage green Pastelbord. I did not do an under painting. The color suited the painting if it shows through. I started with a vague sketch and worked mostly from top to bottom. This is a habit from oil painting. You get in the sky and background and go from there. I try to work a little all over the painting and not get stuck in one place. I had to make several changes on the cacti and that may be the reason. It was easy to work on just one and ignore his friends. When I paint on all parts of the painting, the colors are more unified with a little of each color here and there.

I work with the cooler colors and lighter values in the back to give depth to a landscape. The atmosphere changes the color as the landscape recedes from you so it is cooler and not as distinct. Warmer darker colors come forward. This is easier for me to see in real life. When you paint from photos everything looks bright and clear. Our eyes fool us and we don't see the colors in the shadows, they tend to look black in photos.

Another way to give depth to a painting is to overlap objects. This was not a good idea with the cacti themselves and the arms/limbs get all mixed up and confusing. I did overlap the bushes, grasses, etc.

I try to use complements (opposite colors on the color wheel, green is opposite red, etc.) in the highlights and shadows and reflections. It is not easy to keep all the "rules" of painting in your head and that is why practice is so important. You begin to do these things without thinking and the paintings are better for it. It seems we all want to put the highlights on soon and of course they have to wait until near the end.

Here is the painting and maybe you can see how I applied the pastels to create the three dimensional look. I hope I succeeded. I am happy with the results.

Reaching for the Sky
Soft Pastels on Pastelbord
12 x 12 inches

Do you like the name? I sent a snapshot to Regina and put Tired Saguaros in the subject line of the email. She jokingly asked if this was the name of the painting. I still have time to change the name ... until Sunday.

This painting is for sale, but I need to see if it is accepted in the show first. The deadline to enter is this Sunday. We will find out if they are accepted on February 15. If it is selected, the saguaros won't be available until the first week in May as it will be on exhibit in Austin. I hope it finds its way into the exhibit. You can see the entries as they come in on the website. You still have until tomorrow to enter!