Daily Painting Challenge - Pastel Landscapes No.2

Day two of my daily painting challenge has come and gone and below is the result.  I decided to make a bit of a demo out of this so further below you'll see some photos of some intermediate steps of my painting process on this particular piece.

I have many photos I've taken on my hikes in the Wasatch Mountains, within minutes I can be out of the crowded, noisy suburbs and in a wild nature wonderland.  The thing that appealed to me most about this scene is the cool, dark shapes created by the foreground shadows and the background trees contrasted by the sunlit grassy area.

"Day Hike"

9" x 12", pastel on sanded paper

I have a bunch of sheets of 9" X 12" Colorfix sanded paper that comes in all kinds of different colors and I've decided to try using them up for this daily challenge series.  The painting from day one used a dark gray-violet tone.  Because I wanted to emphasize the coolness of the shadows in this painting I decided to use dark blue paper for this painting.  I lightly sketched the composition using a light gray hard pastel.

Next was a loose block-in using a couple layers and a light touch.  I often use a lot of violets for my block-ins, I'm not sure why but they seem to work.  In this case I used some greens and oranges as well.

This stage is basically more refinement of the block-in, gradually introducing more of the final colors.  I'm careful not to get too crazy with using too many different colors though.  I think I used less than 20 colors in this painting.  As you can see the dark and light shapes are better defined.  This is the stage where I want to be sure the composition is what I want before I get too detailed.  I'll spend some time evaluating the painting from a distance before moving on to the final refinements you see in the finished painting at the top.