Limited Palette Landscape – Introduction

It is a good idea to pick your pastel stick colors in advance during the planning stage of a painting. In this painting, my goal was to use only 24 pastel sticks. I used secondary colors- oranges, purples and greens in different values. I also added a few accent colors to create a pop of interest- bright reds and yellows.  I started the painting with a watercolor underpainting on a piece of 8×10 LuxArchival sanded paper. You can achieve a similar effect using a hard pastel stick instead of watercolor. Next I lightly laid in pastel colors while thinking of the values and shapes. After a few layers of pastel, I was able to start working on details and pops of color. A few dots of bright red, the tall yellowy grasses and bright yellow-greens in the foreground were fun final touches!