Island Bridge

Plein air pastel painting of a curving bridge over a river.

Pastel painting 11 inches x 8 inches

This is a pastel landscape painting of the same Ann Arbor bridge that I posted a few weeks ago, just from a different vantage point. When we started painting around 9 am it was hot and sunny, but soon the sun went under the clouds and the view was completely changed. What was light became dark and what was dark became light. Its a common problem when you paint en plein air and the reason why it is important to get your highlights and shadows in early. In this  pastel painting however, I “chased the light”. I kept my skeleton structure and simply shifted all of the values to match the new view in front of me.