Acrylics, gouache, then pastels

This is what I did this morning. Having taken my camera with me, I took pictures of the process for this desert landscape.




Step one: placing major shapes and colours with acrylics (brush and knife). I was particularly keen to get the rock faces (dark purple) placed and also to create the highlights in a light/mid value rather than too light. These are a couple of layers of acrylic washes. I mixed gloss medium with the acrylics to increase brilliance.
There is a bit of wiping off, sponging on, splashing and scratching going on across the painting.



Step two: working over the acrylics, I added gouache layers - to increase variation and add local colours, notably reds/oranges and greens.

Colored Sands Study, 35x35 cm
Mixed media on Colorfix board

Step three: Adding pastels - creating texture; integrating colours: notably moving pale blue/violet throughout the painting, taking back some of the strong yellow/greens and to place some orange highlights; creating detail of ridge in foreground and defining rock in middle ground.

I'll talk about the composition tomorrow - this one has been giving me some headaches but I think I may have found a solution for it...