Today I watched a YouTube video (click here) by Karen Margulis about successful strategies for a daily painting habit. She demonstrated painting a landscape in pastel in 20 minutes and after I watched it once I decided to follow-along and try my hand at her style.

Below are step-by-step pictures of my attempt. I used a portion of my Canson Touch board in Twilight color. Karen’s painting is much superior to mine, but this was actually fun! It really did take 20 minutes. AND I feel ready to give a shot to doing a painting using one of my own photos.

The big tree really only looks like a tree from a distance, so I included a distant shot. I don’t yet have the skill Margulis has so I would want to draw out my trees a bit more. I can’t quite make the connection from abstract value shape to something I view as a tree after painting.