On March 28 I wrote about an oil painting that was about to be installed in a dental office. It was quite recent and I really liked the captured colors of Fall and the rising mist of Niagara over the first bridge at Three Sisters Islands at the Niagara Reservation. Only on the brightest, sunniest high pressure days will the plume rise so high.
At the time, winter was still raging and I was not interested in returning, so I quickly sketched the picture on a large pastel sheet, in fact it was a UArt paper which I had wanted to try for a while.
Pastels caused my wrist injury and the surgery was not six months back, I was feeling reticent about diving into a pastel composition, however, I missed using the rich and reactive sticks I had pushed aside a year and a half earlier. By pacing myself, working in little bits of time, the picture remained on my easel desk for several weeks as I worked back into holding and coloring with my pastel sticks.
Finished, it is mounted with museum glass, flush to the frame and glass and it looks like a painting. Not the same as the oil it was modeled after but it does capture the sparkle of fall color at Niagara.
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| Studio Work from plein air painting Mist Over the First Sister's Bridge, oil 18x24 pastel, c. 2015 K. Schifano |
