There’s a single petrol pump across from the hotel on the main street in the quiet village of Winnaleah. It has a sense of being from the 1950s. I almost feel like I’m looking at a movie set (hopefully the homey, cozy kind rather than a scary one!). Deciding to paint the scene and wanting to express some of this nostalgic feeling of a bygone era, I intentionally chose colours – blues and pinks – that reflected a kind of rose-coloured glasses sweetness/sentimentality. 

I had arrived in Tasmania to teach a 10-day Art Retreat with Artable. Before the students arrived, I had a couple of days to settle in and as part of those couple of days of quiet (and recuperating after teaching 5-day workshops in New Zealand, then Australia’s Gold Coast and Melbourne!), I happily sketched and painted en plein air. “One Pump” was the result.

Let me take you through the progression of this pastel.

First, here’s the scene. As there was a car parked that partially blocked the view, I had to make up what was behind it. Luckily, all I had to do was go over and have a peek to see what was really there lol.

First, a quick thumbnail to nail down my three value areas – dark, middle, and light. As you can see, it’s a predominantly middle-value design with the light values found on the face of the buildings, the ground, and the clouds. There are only a few areas of dark nuggets.  

I sketched out the main areas with vine charcoal on UART paper. Then in keeping with the sweet nostalgic feeling, I chose pinks and blues for the first layer.

I then began to apply a second layer, thinking more about the local colour.

Building the image, I continued to bring the pinks and blues back in to retain that nostalgic feeling. I also added some warm yellow to give a kind of glow that I hoped would enhance this wistful feeling for a time past.

Here’s a photo of the painting in progress with the scene I was painting clearly visible on the other side of the road. (I had the perfect spot to work en plein air – out of the sun and wind – on the front verandah of the hotel!)

I then got into painting and lost myself in it. Which means I was so immersed that I forgot to take more progression photos! So here’s the final piece:

A few things to note:

• The sign. It’s pretty much the same colour as the sky. The main reason we see it? The light on the edge and also the lit post attaching it to the ground. Often we don’t need to put everything in.
• This idea goes for the area below the sign. I could have put in more details (you can see in the reference photo that there’s a house there) but I decided doing so would take away from my main focus of the single pump. 
• Notice that part of the pump slips into the background. I didn’t want this object that’s front and pretty much centre to have a pasted-on look. Instead, I want to pull the viewer in to look more closely. 
• Although the garage door is grey in real life, I used the same blue on it in the first layer as the blue trim on the building and then created a greyish look with successive pastel layers. Interestingly, I later learned that the original colour of the door was indeed the same blue! Why would they change that??
• I retained the nostalgic feeling in the colour by continuing to reuse those initial pinks and blues I used on the first layer

Near the end of the painting, I felt the area behind the pump was a bit the same so I added that dash of reddish colour. I didn’t want to “say” what it was but leave it to a viewer’s imagination to label it,  if they notice it.

Is there anything else you notice?

And here it is in black and white version in relation to my thumbnail. You can see that they are pretty similar. There’s a range of tonal shift within the middle value area running from a darkish grey behind the pump and the lit part of the garage door to a lighter one in the sky. This relates to how you translate your thumbnail.

And here are the Unison Colour pastels I used (from my set); pastels used for the lights at the top, middle in the middle, and dark at the bottom.

It was such a pleasure to paint in this beautiful part of the world. There were other spots that held that nostalgic feel. In face, just up the road, is another house with a single petrol pump in front of it. And…on our travels, I saw an abandoned station, this time with two pumps but from a time gone by. Lookout for paintings of those to come!

Do you get a nostalgic feeling from my painting? If not, what feeling do you get?? I’d love to know so be sure to leave a comment!

Until next time,

~ Gail