Pastel to oil

Yesterday I tried to paint with pastels. Oh, I wanted them to work!

Instead the first try went into the trash and the second was scrubbed off with a high-pressured hose. 

As is my usual pattern, I went to the studio, put away all my pastels and took out all my oils. The switch is on! Last week I'd used my oils for an afternoon after oiling out paintings in my 'painting graveyard' and figuring out which I wanted to finish (or attempt to finish) for my upcoming show. 

SUNFLOWERS
original oil, 20x24"
not quite finished but almost...
The scale of this is a bit skewed,
but the colors feel right. 

Pastels are wonderful things. When I use them my color sense gets honed to a great level. "I need to use a middle value, warm yellow green" and I find it. When I venture back to oil the decisions are helpful. Now I can mix whatever color I would search for in pastel stick. And the great thing about oils: There is always the color possibility you were looking for! 

SUNFLOWERS
original oil, 20x24
in progress
The colors in the original are
much cleaner than this photo. 

The pastels I attempted yesterday were unsuccessful because of the nuances of color. One image had too much subtlety in the sky blues. My collection of pastels didn't have the colors I needed. Honest. And then there's green. Never the right one in pastel.

Going back to oil yesterday was thrilling. I mean it - THRILLING! 

And I had every green I needed. 

Thanks for reading! ~kmw