Inspired to do a larger pastel piece, I worked on a 22″ x 24″ sheet of red Canson paper to create this drawing. I took photographs along the way to illustrate the process. First I began with a simple value focused watercolor underpainting. It’s important to not overwork this step and stress the paper. In landscape, I almost always start with sky. Once the sky is established it is easy to build in front of it. I may have to tweak colors in the sky later for cohesiveness, but I shouldn’t have to do much. The most difficult part of this piece was the large expanse of grassland. It was hard to be consistant without it being too boring so I tried to vary of the colors and marks. However in doing so I walked the line of making it too “chunky” and imaginary. After a few days work on this piece I am happy with the end result, the balance of warms and cools, of ground and sky.