Exercise Creating Mood and Atmosphere

I had been out of the country for a funeral and unable to bring my oil paints with me, but did pack some chalk pastels and loose pastel paper. I think the medium suited the mood, and even though the weather was beautiful, as seen by a reference photograph, I don’t think I could have painted a happy image if I tried.

I used a very dark almost chocolate brown Conte pastel paper for the ground and a really very limited colour palette – I created several pictures of the local coastline, all with the same palette, letting the brow of the paper show through and give the scenes more depth.