Value study in purple

Ghostly Waters

9 x 12 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

Isn't this strange? I decided to do this value study using purple because I love purple, and because I thought I had the greatest value range in that hue. I had no idea that it would end up looking so ghostly. I had a great deal of fun doing this. The reference photo is the Kalihi Stream looking upstream from the bridge. I did have trouble with the middle values, especially on the rocks. The other thing I had trouble with was that the background foliage was really dark. In this case, the photo recorded that part right. My question is how to handle aerial perspective when the distant stuff is darker than the foreground stuff. Then there is the sunlight and shadow thing on the leaves. I will do this scene using local (more or less) color and see how I can capture the values I have done here.