Im-peared

Today was wet and cold.  A good afternoon to go work on this pear pastel.

I concentrated on brightening everything up.  Part of the pastel process is spraying the work with fixative between adding layers of pastels.  This keeps the pastel from smudging, but also darkens the colors.  It seems the green pastels I’m using are particularly prone to darken dramatically.  So I’m thinking I may need to go brighter to offset the fixative darkening effect.

Next is more work on the tones and values, and finishing details like the fruit labels.

Longmont Colorado Flood

Today I walked over to a portion of the St Vrain Greenway near Rodgers Grove.  Most of these sections are closed off, but with a bit of creative walking, I found a safe way to get on the trail.

From a distance, it looked like I’d be able to walk over this bridge (see left), but as I got closer it was clear it was not safe.

Walking the opposite direction for about 50 yards, the path abruptly falls away (see right).