Starting a New Picture

Duane Wheeler posted a bunch of photos on Facebook, and I was drawn in. So many scenes caught my eye. I asked and received permission to use any I wanted to. I chose four different scenes and printed three versions of each at 5 x 7 inches – edited, black and white, and lightened. (The original tends to be a little dark, which I like, but when painting, I need a lighter version to see details.)

Thank you, Duane. Now which of these beautiful scenes do I paint first? 

The dark sky and mist in the trees in this scene intrigued me so much, I decided to do this one first. I got out drawing supplies to do the initial sketch. It took longer than I thought to do this first drawing. Once again, a scene I thought would be easy has its challenges. Halfway through the drawing I decided I needed to see more detail, so I also cropped two sections and printed new photos. Still, there are some places that’s hard to fully see what’s going on… but I can always fill in with grass. 

A challenge, too, is when the original photo is panoramic. This means the scene must be drawn not using the full sheet (it’s only 5 ½ x 8 ½) or I need to bunch the scene to fit in the aspects I want (which I usually do).

Of course, this is just an initial drawing. Once I actually sketch the outlines of the scene onto the support I'm going to paint on and use pastels, it'll come together.

My plan when I set up for the actual painting is to do the scene more panoramic.

I printed the original photo in 8 x 10 to better see details while painting.