Figures in pastels

Using pastels is like playing golf: every time you pick them up , it's as though you have never used them before. Previous successes in the medium are irrelevant and unhelpful. Ask Tiger Woods.

This is why this blog is very helpful. I can put all images for a certain topic together in one space and compare the techniques, colours, strokes and effects. No two paintings are alike, yet I think I have my own style. 

Gollum

This model is fabulous. She is fleshy, round and elegant with tiny hands and delicate ankles. I might use this sketch as a basis for an oil painting. I must remember to take my camera next time as the models usually allow you to take photos.

A flavour of Spring

It's nearly exhibition time for the WAS and here are three of my paintings. All are done in acrylic. The lambs are about 8'' x 8'' and the woodland scene is about 12'' x 8''.

This one above has photographed badly: the colours are fresher.

This one has caught sunlight filtering through.

Let's see if any sell.

A delicate hand

Another pastel drawing from my Life Drawing class. 

Notice how I have edited out the rubbish bits.

I do like the hand and foot in this one and the leg foreshortening is convincing, I think.

Life Drawing in pastels

My favourite class bar none is Tuesday morning with Harriet Brittaine at South Hill Park.

It is a Life Drawing class tutored by a talented artist and cheery, organised teacher, who gives subtle but such helpful advice to us all.

This model is very, very slender.

I am using my pastels, which have remained untouched for years because I have little idea how to use them plus the fact that they are extremely messy and so I will not use them indoors at home. 

I am struggling along with them in my own untidy fashion. Some pastels are soft and dense and they almost melt onto the paper; others are square in cross section and are hard and make precise marks so there are a lot of effects to achieve.

I am loving it.

My boys.

               These are my boys ... in acrylics.

They are both on stretched watercolour paper, which was a lovely smooth surface, and the paint glided around nicely. 

I would love to do a HUGE acrylic on canvas of the two of them - one sitting, one standing perhaps  - or else in a typical pose of internetting.

And these are my girls....

"Rally round, ladies"

has been a big success. 

A lot of people have commented on it and it was sold quickly at the Wokingham Art Exhibition. It was probably about 12" x 8", unframed on a box canvas. 

My Still Lifes , which I love painting, are not what people want so I may do more of this kind of work. I was quite pleased with the woolly coats on these sheep, I must say.

Hellebores

These are three small box canvas acrylic paintings of hellebore flowers from the garden.

They have all been altered since this photo but I have not yet been able to capture the delicate quality of the petals.

I wanted a bright , cheery background but I'm not sure this turquoise shade is doing the flowers any favours.

After the workshop

This work was started at a workshop taken by Liz Seward and using acrylic paints, finessed with Neocolor II wax pastels. The pastels (or crayons) are water soluble so can be blended on top of the acrylic painting or left as drawing marks to add more detail. 

This first photo is my painting as it left the workshop.

I had taken some photos for a Still Life arrangement and this is the one Liz recommended I do.

Liz also recommended that I get rid of the furled leaf lying across the stems but I thought I knew better and so I left it in as I was enjoying trying to get the form right.......

I still have the furled leaf but I have changed the angle of the stems to separate them from the bowl a bit. I have wet the Neocolor to blend it into the forms of the objects. The orange (top right) is looking more like an orange but the lemon on the left is not sitting down in the bowl.

This is the latest version and I am debating whether to leave it like this or alter the tulip stems to make them less rose-like: they should be thicker and not so rigid. 

The furled leaf has gone, thank goodness: it was a real pain

That left-hand lemon is bothering me now.

What title shall I give it?

If it is to go in the local exhibition, it needs a title.