November Sparkle

Pastel on Clairefontaine Pastelmat, 13 x 19 inches

I painted this Pastel painting as a demonstration piece to an Art Group last November and have only just got round to finishing it off, having put it away and forgotten about it.  

I do have a fascination for the way pure sunlight reacts on water and anything that is in line with it.  I love trying to capture the effect it produces - in this painting, that part obscuration of the reflection of the foreground reeds, almost making the viewer squint from the illusion of intense sunlight.  That's what excites me about this sort of subject.  There are also lots of tiny jewels of sparkling light on the water and the vegetation, where the thawing Autumn frost was melting into droplets of dew.  Nonetheless, the composition would have been very dull without the sheep dotted about in the field on the far bank.