Pastel Painting .. Oops!

I painted two pastel paintings yesterday.  Not on purpose.  The Southwest Western Forum on wetcanvas has a monthly painting challenge which I've mentioned here before.   I was the host for August.  http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1469172  Another painting besides the rooster and hens should be forthcoming, right?  Something inspired me to combine the photo of the aspens and the adobe wall.

In reality that is not a very common combination.  Most of the homes in the high country are log cabins or at least lumber and rock combinations with very sloped roofs for the snow.  I have seen a few of the new ones with stucco on the house and some adobe looking walls.  It was fun to combine them to see the result.

I had a tablet of Sennelier Pastel Card which is 9.5 by 12.5 inches.  I didn't notice that or I would have trimmed it to 9 x 12 inches to fit a standard frame.  I can still trim it, but would have been easier to do that first.  It could also be framed with a mat around it, but that isn't to my liking.

I taped the paper to a piece of foam core.  (My YouTube on how to do this, less than 2 minutes https://youtu.be/W-xufjiRhtM )

The paper was a sort of dark mustard color so I decided to do an under painting for the sky in the painting.  When you use an under painting, you don't have to use so much pastel to cover the paper or board surface. Plus you can get nice effects with under painting.

I put on some blue pastel and sprayed it with my water bottle.  So far so good.  Then I got the paintbrush and started to smooth the pastel to cover the paper.  There comes the "Oops"!!  It had been so long since I painted on that paper that I had forgotten it is a vegetable based paper and the sanded part just wiped off leaving white paper.  Uh oh.  I had forgotten that the water would soften the surface.  It does say on the cover that the paper is for "dry" media.

You can see how the surface wiped off.  Sorry for the dirt background, needed to take the photo in the sun .. getting late, notice the shadow.

I turned the surface upside down and marked off a 5 x 7 area and painted a small painting of geraniums for a gift for a neighbor here in Angel Fire.  Great idea.  I took photos and then trimmed it with my paper cutter.  Later I went to move the little painting and dropped it face down on the garage floor.  The second "Oops"!  The highlights and final strokes just fell off.  I won't be buying that paper again.  It is years old.  I love Sennelier pastels.  They are soft and beautiful colors.  The half stick boxes are very reasonable priced.  They do have a hard one or two sometimes, but a real bargain on price overall. 

Angel Geraniums

7 x 5 inches on Sennelier Pastel card

I used another sheet of the Sennelier pastel card for the second painting.  It worked fine with pastel on the dry paper.  I wouldn't use it with a mat as the pastel would tend to fall off if bumped.  I will trim and frame against the glass when it is framed.

Questa Wall

12 x 9 inches on Sennelier Pastel card

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As promised, some photos of the trip to Cimarron from Angel Fire:

Eagle Nest Lake and beautiful clouds.

Views near the Pallisades Sill.  You can read about that and see more photos from a 2014 post:  https://jocastilloartblog.blogspot.com/2014/09/hunt-373-sketches-photos-cimarron.html

A double rainbow on the way.

Arriving in Cimarron.  We did encounter some rain on the way down the canyon.

 The entrance to the St. James Hotel.

I believe the rooster on this hutch is a real stuffed rooster.  Yuck!  You know me and chicken.

A real stuffed longhorn.  About half a yuck!  It was right over our table.  I'm pretty sure this wasn't part of the dining room originally.

We will be going back to the St. James on September 6.  Our good friends, Tommy Byrd and Kathy Street will be preforming.  Maybe you will be there, too?

Byrd and Street  http://www.byrdandstreet.com/calendar.html

They will be in New Mexico for about a week.  I'm sure you would enjoy one of their shows.  Have fun!