This weeks’ word challenge (3) were: orange, sunset and serene. Well oh well, I figured it was a perfect time to paint a sunset. And I knew exactly which scene would fit the bill.
No underpainting was used with this oil pastel (8×10) – the piece was painted on pastel paper so it wouldn’t tolerate any wet application, which was fine because the paper is tinted icy blue and would work with the selected OPs color. The reference image had incredible sunset colors that I wanted to verify were actually true to local colors and after some research I was able to find that sunset colors in that area of Georgia this brilliant.
Here’s Lake Hartwell, hope you enjoy ~
Reference image was taken by Craig Johnson a photographer at pmp.
Oil Pastels by Mary 
Beautiful sky, and love the reflection in the water.
Great painting !
Thank you Petronette for your nice comments!
Oneiric like something out of Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu–and then ambrosially rendered in candy-store color.
Beautifully worded Ariel Prospero – so nice to hear from you! Ah yes, it is like out of a dream, nature gives us eye-candy visions to balance the ugly and horrid in our universe.
Wow! I can hear the hush disturbed by the voices of the people in the boat.
Hi Leslie, thank you very much – so right. It’s one of those special places that no words are required.
Beautiful!
Thanks very much!!
Wow really spectacular!
Thanks so much Mona for your wonderful comment! Really appreciate it ~
You have captured the serenity of dusk in that unique way you have with combining mediums. Lovely!
Thanks Dorann – the scene really spoke to me and it’s one of those images that oil pastels are perfect for capturing.
OH, the Light! And the COLOR! Magnificent, Mary!
Hi Elena, thank you so much! I’m always hesitant to post one of these “wild-like” paintings (wild for my style anyways), but I felt such a sense of peace painting this scene. Glad you enjoyed it!
Looks like a romantic place.
Hi Annie, thank you very much!!
Mary, this is a wonderful and peaceful painting. The reflection is well done and the receding clouds gives it depth and perspective.
Hi Patricia, oh my look at your review – wonderful! Thank you so much for your feedback and kind comments. Painting quiet scenes like this is a very relaxing time for me – can only imagine sitting by the waters edge experiencing the changing suns’ colors would be incredible.
What an amazing sunset, Mary!!! 🙂 xx
Thanks Marina! It was a whole lot of fun playing with colors in painting this sunset.
Gorgeous sunset, Mary! The orange and the blue are so vibrant.
Hi Francesca, thank you very much for your lovely comments. Nature gives us the best gift with her every beautifully colored sunsets.
Beautiful 🙂
Thanks Sharon!
I often feel I could easily live in your paintings.. it always look calmer and better then the real thing itself.
Hi Doron, thank you for commenting – very nice and I do appreciate it. I was quite surprised by the wonderful colors in the sky, in Texas we don’t have this range of colors in our sunsets – most (if not all) warm colors.
It would be easier
To tell the lake from the sky
If they changed places
Hi Andrezej, so nice to meet you and thank you for visiting my blog. Thanks for commenting and interesting, you could be right and there is no reason why the scene couldn’t be re-painted reversing the position of colors/patterns from the sky to the water. In this piece I was trying to stay true to the scene and it’s pretty much as you see rendered here.
Dear Mary,
May haiku-comment was a poetical way to express my admiration. I’m fascinated with water taking all possible colors while it has no color of its own. My last post is about this phenomenon: small transparent raindrops become colorful paintballs.
Thank you Andrzej for your note and explanation – it means a lot that you wrote back and I do appreciate your beautiful comment. Water does hold a huge fascination for me as well, exactly because of what you just stated – as a artist in the beginning I really struggled with painting what I saw and not what I thought was there. Reflecting water is a beautiful thing – in the middle of painting a quiet Fall scene now. I’ve gone to your blog and wasn’t able to read your posts, can you add an English translation so many more of us can enjoy your posts? Thank you so much for writing back.
Thanks for your visit and good words. I abandoned studying painting but my grandson of 8 is asking me again and again to show him the painter’s workshop, so who knows, maybe next summer we will go at it.
I’m writing in English on this blog sometimes, so if you go back in the menu, you’ll find a lot of photo-poems. Just skip the Polish posts and go to the English ones. If there is something I can write better in English, I do it, otherwise it has to be said in my mother tongue.