Imperial Palace Finished!

I've had all of these great pics from our trip to Japan last summer sitting in a file waiting to become paintings. Here is the first one of the Nijubashi Bridge at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. I decided to do this one in pastel for a couple of reasons. 1) I thought the colors in the photograph were really rich and it would be easy to render in pastel. 2) It is a fairly small painting (maybe 7x10) and I thought it would look too busy in watercolor 3) My box of sennelier pastels still smiles at me everytime I walk in my art room and beckons me to play with them!

Something I recently observed working in pastels- my issues with the color green have disappeared! Obviously in pastel you are working with a limited palette since you only have so many sticks (my set has 80 half sticks) and mixing colors is difficult. The set I have is specifically for landscapes. When I first opened the box I noticed the most flourescent lime green pastel I have ever seen. I thought, "when in the world will I use this color?" But sure enough it has made it's way into every painting recently as the most brilliant highlight color for foliage.

Overall I like this painting. It's better than another one I did recently of a bridge. I was challenged to capture the atmsophere however. When I took the photo the air was dewy since it just finished raining and the colors in the photo have an almost smoky quality. Somehow mine turned out looking like it is a clear sunny day. Perhaps the colors are too warm. Any suggestions?