PREPARATION WITH PASTELS

Unsure if I should invest in the Neocolor IIs, I decided to try out the basic soft pastels I already had and again attempted to do so on the wrong paper due to lack of resources. I did try to do some studies first though as I'd clearly been losing direction or 'loss of the whole picture' when painting. Following the advice in the videos I watched, I used only three tones to map out the picture. My reference was from the map book that I received this morning. There are four that I particularly liked the composition of. I went for the stile wrapped in a circular frame of leaves first.

Studies to prepare me for the picture and the picture to prepare me for the walk.

Despite choosing the grainiest paper I could find it obviously still wasn't right and I struggled to layer the colours on top of each other as expected due to the lack of texture. I'm getting easily frustrated with work now so I've decided to finish it another day and primed two of the canvas boards so that  I'll have less mental barriers to painting tomorrow.