House by the River 11.5 x 19 pastel on paper

This painting was done as a demo for my class at Montgomery College. I was demonstrating two things: the use of complementary color and the use of two different kinds of underpainting. The surface is Art Spectrum "supertooth", a fantastic surface for underpaintings.

I used both hard pastel and water color as an underpainting, using the pastel in the dark areas behind the house and in the buildings and bushes. I used water color in the grasses at bottom and part of the top, as I didn't want to completely cover it with pastel. I used various green pastels on the house as an underpainting: a mid-tone cool green under the shadow areas, a warm yellow green under the lighted area. For the finished picture, the composition is primarily red violets and cool reds (magenta), along with warm greens. I really liked the luminosity of the water color at the bottom and added only a minimal amount of pastel.

One of the biggest challenges was the roof. In the photo, it appeared to be a very light violet but I was trying to keep to my red/green color scheme. I started out with a warm aqua, but really didn't like it and cooled it down with a light grayed reddish color and a little violet. It's probably still all a little too light but the sun was overhead, hitting it pretty strongly.

The "river" is the Root River in southern Minnesota. We were hoping to take some nice walks on the bike trail, but it was in the 90s and a little too warm. This might be a stretch as a "shore house" but there really was a river nearby!