A Frustrating Time in the Studio

Snowy Ridge Trail, 9 1/2 x 15 3/4 pastel painting

January 30: An hour and fifteen minutes in the studio and I’m close to tears. I feel sick to my stomach. And I was excited at maybe getting close to finishing.

First, I pulled up Corey’s original photo and noticed the blue of the mountains was more of a blue-black. It’s funny how I can work and work, then I’ll re-look at one of the other photos and see something different in the scene. So I dug out a darker blue pastel and went to work redefining the mountaintops and and slopes . The color is better, but with all the other layers, everything was smudging and the dust was making a mess. It was worse when I tried to add to the fog.

I kept thinking I should just give up and start all over, but I kept working. It’d probably be better if I started anew, but I’ve spent so much time on this, I hate to just give up.

I ended up wiping off most of the pastel in the middle, between the top of the closest mountain and the ridge and between two of the trees. Then I put in new foggy areas, the mountain colors and shading... but the area between the smaller trees blended into more of a gray, and I couldn’t keep the correct blue color.

I worked other fog, too, but much of it smeared and got muddy. It turns more blue when I’d rather it be gray/white with a touch of purple. I smudged some areas, then added back detail. I was getting so frustrated.

Three times I got up to call it quits. Three times I sat back down and went at it again. I added back in four of the middle trees. The hardest part with the trees are the evergreen needles, trying to get them over the layers of the background/fog. I was mostly using an extra soft charcoal pencil.

I worked the big pine trees on the left better defining them. These are difficult because the two trees run together and it’s hard to tell in some places which branches go to what tree.

I’m totally at a loss. All the excess pastel falling off sticks everywhere, all over the painting, all over everything, including me.

I finally walked away. Maybe I’ll start a new painting and let this one sit for awhile. Except this one has been on the easel long enough. I so want to get this right. It’s a beautiful, intriguing scene.

And yet again, from a distance it looks OK, and even this progress photo looks promising.