Pastel painting "Gray Shaggy Parasol", a Pacific Northwest Mushroom

Well Autumn is here, and with it the mushrooms.  I love mushrooms!  Although I don't feel that I am knowledgeable enough to decide which are edible and which aren't, I love to take photos of them.  They are so varied and interesting.  Here is a painting of one of my favorites, the gray shaggy parasol, with a couple of progress photos.

Gray Shaggy Parasol, 8x10 inches, pastel on board
Available through Etsy

I often like a white background for painting, because it makes it a bit easier to keep the colors true to what I had intended - but with this one, I chose a dark green board made by Ampersand.  It allowed me to be looser in my application, since I don't have to worry about covering up every bit of white - the dark green peeking through was a good thing!  

I wanted to have an abstracted and mysterious background, so I put in plenty of darks right away.  I find that I have to do the darks first, or I am too hesitant with them later in the painting.  That burgundy color sort of just jumped into my hand - but I liked the way it looked - it added a nice warm contrast to the moss in the foreground later on.  

Thanks for looking!  :)