Week 4 was pastels again.  This time Will got us to use hardboard as a canvas.  You use the rough (back) side of hardboard to give a texture that will accept the pastels.  But first you have to lightly sand the surface to get off any coating put on in the manufacture of the board.  He told us this would be a different experience as the hardboard would capture the pastels more than paper leading to more solid colours, and less smudging.

I decided to try my first landscape.  I’ve always admired landscapes but never had the first idea how to start.

I must admit I didn’t enjoy this lesson as much.  I found the lack of smudginess meant I couldn’t be as free and easy with the materials, and yet the pastels weren’t defined enough to give much precision.  I guess it’s no surprise that I wasn’t particularly happy with the result:

I almost didn’t put up this picture as I’m not happy with it, but I decided I’d prefer to have a record of my progress here rather than applying ‘selection bias’ giving a warped view of how good I am!

As always, here’s the original I was working from: