WIP - Laramie Peak

I decided to play with my thumbnail sketch of Laramie Peak that I posted about last week.  I went to the art store to see about getting some paper more suitable for oil pastels and I ran into the artist who taught the drawing class Matthias and I did together last year.  One of the things I talked about was my desire to experiment with a non-white background for my pastel paintings.  She works at the art store and suggested that instead of buying colored paper, I get some acrylic paper and paint it before applying the oil pastel.

I liked the idea so I bought an A5 pad of acrylic paper.  It might be a bit small, but you've got to start somewhere!  I'm still experimenting a lot and one thing I wanted to look at is whether I like contrasting or complementary colors in the background.  Here are three underpaintings I did in acrylic which I plan to paint over with oil pastel: