Let’s take a closer look at a high-key pastel by Childe Hassam, Up the River. I’ll cover:
- Distinct Pastel Finish
- Shimmering Colors
- Small Areas of Contrast and Detail
- Directional Strokes
- Color Gradation and Exposed Surface
- Rule of Thirds
- Key Takeaways
- Want to Learn More?
- Thanks for Reading!
Title: Up the River
Date Created: 1906
Size: 17.7 x 21.7 inches (45.1 x 55.2 cm)
Medium: Pastel on Paper
Iāll walk you through the entire process using one of my recent paintings. Youāll see how I go from idea all the way through to reflecting on the finished painting.
Distinct Pastel Finish
Pastel is an interesting medium. It has characteristics of both drawing and painting and a distinct finish that’s not easily replicated with other mediums. There’s a dry, chalkiness to it. It’s also light and fresh, especially compared to the richness and fullness of oils (see Hassam’s oil painting below for comparison). On a separate note, there seems to be a bit of contention as to whether a pastel artwork is considered a drawing, a painting, or as a standalone medium. I’m still unsure after doing some research. It seems to depend on how the pastels are used. Feel free to share any insights in the comments.
Tip: Each medium has different strengths and limitations. In order to get the most out of your chosen medium, you must use it in a way that plays into its strengths without being crippled by its limitations. With pastel, focus on its convenience, drawing, and soft colors. But perhaps don’t focus on impasto texture (one of pastel’s obvious limitations).
Shimmering Colors
Most of the colors are compressed around the middle to light end of the value scale. You can see what I mean in the grayscale below. The colors are even lighter in value than I first expected (color can be deceiving like that).
The light colors give the painting its shimmering appearance. You can almost feel the crisp breeze and warm sunlight. Though it does come at the sacrifice of value contrast (light against dark). There are no truly dark colors to provide a strong value contrast. And this is a big sacrifice, as value is perhaps our best tool as artists for conveying realism. It’s the opposite of, say, the dramatic chiaroscuro works of Rembrandt or Caravaggio where value contrast is the key driver. We cannot have it all in painting. There is always a trade-off!
Small Areas of Contrast and Detail
The painting features a pleasant balance between small areas of contrast and detail and large areas of quiet space. This is a tried and true strategy for a balanced composition. The small areas, in this case the buildings in the back (closeup below), draw our attention and add interest to the painting. The quiet areas give our eyes a rest.
Directional Strokes
Hassam’s directional strokes add a sense of movement and vibration. It makes it look as though wind is blowing in the sky and in the tall grass and there’s a gentle ebb and flow in the water.
For the most part, the strokes follow the contours and gesture of the subject. But I would say the directional strokes of the sky are what Hassam felt worked best in the context of the painting (it’s Hassam exercising his artistic license). I do this with many of my calm landscapesāI take the liberty to inject a bit of movement and energy into the sky based on what the painting needs rather than what the wind is actually doing. This usually comes down to a gut feeling. Below is a good example that I painted back in 2016, Three Boats at Kingfisher Bay. Notice my radiating strokes in the sky which help reiterate the sunset and its brilliant colors.
Hassam’s directional strokes also help lead our eyes around the painting. My eyes are taken on a journey from the boats, along the rickety jetty, up through the grass, through the trees at the back, and around the sky. Your eyes may go on a completely different journey through the painting. That’s what makes art interesting! We all see and experience it differently.
Color Gradation and Exposed Surface
There’s a subtle color gradation in the sky. Notice how Hassam created this gradation by changing the color of his strokes rather than by gently blending the colors together. The closeup below also shows how much of the toned surface is showing through in the finished work. It gives the sky a subtle and warm glow without overpowering the blues.
Leaving parts of the surface exposed is something Nicolai Fechin often did in his landscapes. It gives a rustic, broken color appearance. It’s also efficient in the sense it allows you to take advantage of the surface color and make fewer strokes.
Rule of Thirds
Below is the painting with a three-by-three grid over the top (created using this free grid tool). This helps us analyse the painting in terms of composition and the rule of thirds. A few observations:
- There’s a 1:3 relationship between the sky and land.
- The concentrated area of buildings in the background is around the top-left intersection.
- The boats are around the bottom-right intersection.
- The jetty aligns with the bottom horizontal gridline.
Notice how most of the activity is happening around the gridlines and intersections? That’s not to suggest Hassam was actively thinking about the rule of thirds as he came up with this painting. But it may have been in the back of his mind.
Key Takeaways
- Pastel is an interesting medium. It has characteristics of both drawing and painting and a distinct finish that’s not easily replicated with other mediums.
- In order to get the most out of your chosen medium, you must use it in a way that plays into its strengths without being crippled by its limitations.
- The light colors give the painting its shimmering appearance. You can almost feel the crisp breeze and warm sunlight. Though it does come at the sacrifice of value contrast (light against dark). We cannot have it all in painting. There is always a trade-off!
- Small areas of contrast and detail paired with large areas of quiet space is a tried and true strategy for a balanced composition.
- Hassam’s directional strokes add a sense of movement and vibration. It makes it look as though wind is blowing in the sky and in the tall grass and there’s a gentle ebb and flow in the water.
- Your eyes may go on a completely different journey through the painting. That’s what makes art interesting! We all see and experience it differently.
- You can leave parts of the surface exposed in the finished painting. This can create a rustic, broken color appearance. It’s also efficient in the sense it allows you to take advantage of the surface color and make fewer strokes.
Want to Learn More?
If you ever want to learn more, start with my Painting Academy course. I’ll walk you through the time-tested fundamentals of painting.
Thanks for Reading!
I appreciate you taking the time to read this post and I hope you found it helpful. Feel free to share it with friends.
Happy painting!
Dan Scott
Are you left handed? I ask this based on your description of the way your eye travels though a painting.
Hi Lori
Yes, Dan is left handed when he paints š
Chontele
Hello,
I really like your painting at Kingfisher bay. I would like to know how you manage to paint brillant water.
Monique Cadrin
A high value landscape always seems so fragile almost vaporous in its sunlight! Lovely painting and helpful discussion. Thanks!
Marcia
a medium I would like to try in the future. Im still working out all the kinks using acrylics.
I really like this work! Your explanations and lessons are so helpful!!
Pastel is my primary medium. I think of what I do as painting, but I can see how it can be considered a drawing medium depending on how it’s used. The beauty of pastels is that they are almost pure pigment with very little binder, especially as you get into the very soft sticks. The colors just sparkle and you don’t need to mix anything or wait for it to dry.
High value paintings are my least favorite, and the first painting is no exception. Also, his leaving the tonal surface exposed left me feeling unfinished. I much preferred the Spring painting.
My primary medium is also Pastel and agree with Anitaās comments. Much of my painting is done with the sides of the pastels in a painterly manner.
Regards the painting under discussion, I found the tonal range very small. Pastels, being almost pure pigment, are capable of the full tonal range and it is not a restriction of the medium. I think the term pastel (range of low tone colours) and pastel the medium get confused.
Love your discussion of composition.
Good morning, I honestly did not like this painting when I first saw it. It hit me as far too bright to see the details. In fact, my response was ‘whoa’. By the time I finished reading your analysis, I liked it better than not. Still not a huge fan.
This discussion is synchronicity at its best! I recently painted a yellow pepper and last nite contemplated doing it again in high key to see if I could get shimmer into the new painting. I thought I remembered the late Skip Lawrence talking about that in a workshop I had with him years ago. And up popped your email to reinforce my memory. I am so tired of exercises trying to reproduce what I see. A bit of color chicanery is warranted! Thank you!
Thanks, Dan, interesting and informative discussion. I wouldn’t spend much time on this painting if I came across it in an art gallery (perhaps exactly because of the high-key and restricted value range), but your presentation made me look closer at it. It’s actually a very finely balanced work. And astonishing, what he achieved with an absolute minimum of strokes. It almost has the feel of a sketch.
I loved it! So sensitive. So many close color relationships within such a small range. I donāt know why so many people need to be smacked in the face with value contrast. Donāt have to think, I guess. Iām anxious to try something in a similar key.
Hmmm, well I am not exceptionally talented but do not like this pastel. Reasons: the lines in the sky do not go with the obvious āwindyā strokes of the trees as do the strokes of the grass in the water, the white lines in the sky are out of touch & not believable to my eye & neither are the yellow lines in the water except for the middle third. Is it windy or is it not? Of course Iām not a big fan of high-key. Ellen
What an interesting discussion. I use pastel a lot and have never thought it was not painting. Not very keen on the work you critiqued – it appears to be a rough sketch tho. So perhaps thatās why. My paintings are always mistaken for oil or acrylic and are rich and layered as I use the stick like a paint brush.
Anita and Pamela I wonder if you also appreciate the ability to go from the preliminary sketch in to a fully finished painting with out changing mediums. Love that aspect of pastel.
Thanks Dan for this post. Feel a need to drop my oils for a while and get out the sticks.
Certainly. I do sketches from life and plien air and then do final paintings from those. Fantastic medium which is overlooked by many.
I do agree that this painting looks like a sketch rather than what was intended as a final painting. His oil works are definitely much more toned and vibrant. I donāt think it āsellsā pastel painting well.
Even on a widely toned landscape, I can get that glimmer by just pulling my pastel very softly across another colour. Especially useful for water or paddocks.
Loved everything about the pastel work. Big fan of all the elements you described, sketchy, ‘less is more’, confident strokes. Not so easy to leave so much of the paper untouched and used so skilfully so that the background colour looks different in different parts of the work. So much depends on the composition, really appreciated your analysis of that.
I am a novice with pastels. I use pan pastels and stick pastels. Both have extra dark intense tones. Why not check it out? Look at some of the paintings by Alain Picard. I think it could change your opinion.
Three boats Danās painting, superb water, exceptional, best I have ever seen but what a shame about the sky. I hate to say it but typical overthinking by the artist, we all do it.!
Just had to say wonderful water though.
I don’t think it matters whether you call it drawing or painting – for me this has no bearing on my reaction to the piece. Personally I’d say it’s a painting, but there are items which have had to be drawn, like the jetty and houses.
I think it’s an interesting piece, I’d like to know how big it is. There seems to be a lot of separate delicate strokes in the close ups, so I’m guessing fairly large. In which case it is remarkable to have created such a scene with such sparsity of medium.
I’m reading a very interesting book Monet:Nature Into Art, by John House, in which he describes a period in Monet’s work where he was obsessed with how to create 3-d type forms using just colour (I think he means hue and saturation) rather than value.
I loved every comment about this painting. How rare to get such a wide swing in opinions.
I would have zoomed past this painting in a museum in order to look at something else.
But after examination I love the high value contrasts and the strokes that leave air in between them.
It is fresh and not overworked.
Good call Dan.