Last month, my Facebook friend, Clive Hughes, who takes wondrous photos of the Irish countryside, posted an image of a road, mountains and lake that was suffused with such an unearthly light that there was an audible gasp heard round the Facebook world. Several of us asked Clive’s permission to render the image in our preferred medium. Here is the progression of my effort with the finished pastel painting.
The original photograph, The Cloghbrack, Connemara, by Clive Hughes
Step 1, the sketch
Step 2, the underpainting
Step 3, blending the underpainting and adding color to the sky
Steps 4-9, continuing to lay in color and form shapes, working predominantly in a clockwise manner, from the top down. The final section done was the rain puddles on the road.
This next image is blurred but I wanted to show how I put in the undercolor for the hedges beside the road.
The finished painting, Irish Morning, pastel, 9×12, from an original photograph by Clive Hughes.
