Having done most of my work on Fabriano Ingres pastel paper with Faber Castell pastel pencils, I had begun experimenting with other pastel papers and different brands of pastel pencil. This painting was an early experimental piece using Clairefontaine Pastelmat paper, which is now my preferred surface. The painting depicts a scene from the Bethesda computer game Skyrim® and was chosen because of the variety in the scene, with the mountains, woodlands, stream, watermill and the foreground stone bridge. The Cretacolour pastel pencils seemed to blend better than my usual Faber Castell pencils with the soft pastel under layer, which gave me another option. I still use Cretacolour pencils from time to time (they actually work really well with off-cuts of Daler Rowney mountboard, which I sometimes use to make small practice paintings).

Medium: Pastel
Size: 39 x 31 cm
Materials: Clairefontaine Pastelmat paper. SAA soft pastels. Cretacolour pastel pencils
Mountboard Colour: White