These two pastels were several months back and I am just now getting around to posting on my blog. In creating both of these, I have decided that I really enjoy making the bright skies.
This first one was out of my mind and I didn’t use photos for reference. This isn’t really typical of me. I created it from a story a lady told me. She shared with me how you don’t always see the positive things when you are in the middle of a bad situation. She shared how her and her husband were traveling in Southern Utah late one night. They were driving through the night and their car broke down at around 1 AM. This was back when there were no cell phones so all they could do was wait. They ended up sleeping in the car and waiting through the night, thinking “what a bad night”. In the morning, they were awakened by the most beautiful sunrise in the middle of a valley with buttes and spires all around. She said it taught them that everything happens for a reason and sometimes you just have to try to find the bright side. Anyway, I created this pastel for her from that story:
I enjoyed creating that one so much and my husband liked it so much that he wanted to keep it. So, I told him I would make another one like it for us. For this one, I decided to use a couple of photos that we had taken many years ago from our trip to Castle Rock Valley, outside Moab Utah. I used a photo of Castle Rock and a photo of the group of rocks called “The Priest and the Nuns”. I changed the angles and shading a little but the basic shapes are the same. Here’s that one and I really like the way it turned out:
