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In Stockholm's harbor, there is a lovely red citadel on a small island guarding the entrance. If you are up by it, it becomes too close to paint, and if you are downhill, there is so much foliage that covers it. It is possible to capture it from the heights across the water, but then it becomes very small as it is so far away. I was lucky to get a sunny day in foliage free autumn, when I could sketch it from this viewpoint, and get that lovely path to lead us into the painting, and uphill.

The citadel really is very red, here is a photo of it, from Wikipedia.



For you pastel painters: In order to make the colour masses more interesting, I've sprinkled a lot of orange into the sky and grass, as well as in the path. The reds of the citadel are toned down with olive greens. This creates a variety that I find pleasing to the eye.

Soft pastels on LuxArchival paper. This paper is new to me, as I normally work on Fisher 400. The Lux is a creamy white, while the Fisher is sandy beige. I found that that aspect doesn't matter so much. What made a difference is that the grains of sand are more uneven in size on the Lux, so it was very easy to use the side of a pastel to give an impression of naked branches in the bushes.