#P7: Waikato River at Dusk

This pastel was roughly based on the charcoal sky study of an earlier post (image shown again below). I started with a watercolor under-painting and then covered this with pastel. My pastel set is still too small – I am missing some crucial light oranges and ochres that I would normally use in the sky and water reflections. You can see the color of the reflections in the water is not quite right and a bit overworked. In the end the paper could take no more.

Lots to learn, and miles to go before I sleep.

I have had a rewarding but tiring week at work, no time for anything creative apart from the odd sketch in a stolen moment. I feel tired and my back pain is driving me nuts. I keep the voices at bay while the year hurtles toward the final quarter – time becomes viscous and energy dissipated. A harder time is coming…

The Respite
A harder time is coming.
The end of the respite allowed us
appears on the skyline.
Soon you must tie your shoe-lace
and drive back the dogs to the marshland farms.
For the fishes' entrails
have grown cold in the wind.
Poorly the light of the lupins burns.
Your gaze gropes in the fog:
the end of the respite allowed us
appears on the skyline. 

(first verse of 3)
Ingeborg Bachmann, translated by Michael Hamburger 
in Modern European Poetry, ed. Willis Barnstone

Thank you for visiting my blog. I hope you find strength, courage, joy and contentment in the week ahead.