Oil Pastel Workshop

Across the River WIP
(Oil pastel on grey mount board, 11 x 11 in)

Another Friday afternoon at Gateshead Art Society, another interesting workshop led by my old friend Tony Montague. 

I've used oil pastels before but not to any great extent and I did find it a little frustrating not to be able to cover greater areas faster. This picture represents about an hour and a half's work and you can see I'm nowhere near covering the grey mount board. I don't want to cover all of it, of course: the board was chosen for its colour and some of the grey will show through the finished image.

As is often the case, I had to make a frantic search for suitable imagery for this afternoon session and I eventually found this image in a set of photographs I took on one of our painting weeks away. This one was in Little Langdale in 2007, and you might be able to guess that I chose it as an addition to my current fascination with paths through woods.