Wetting Pastels

Pot With Lemon 

Today, Painterly Pastels was about  painting with pastel washes. There are four mediums you can use to wet your pastels: Turpenoid, water, rubbing alcohol and acetone. I had rubbing alcohol in my case. I chose to go with it, because I had it. I also thought it would evaporate quicker than Turpenoid, and was a lot less smelly than acetone. Water was out. I had read that water did cause sanded paper to buckle. I figured why mess with that problem, when I had so many  others going on learning to understand this new medium?  Mineral Spirits I rejected on my own; it has an oily feel to it, which would  cause it to totally saturate the pigment.

What you see here, is how this painting walked out of class. It still needs work, but it is a CLASS. This session was meant to teach  how pastels behave when wet. I did get the drift  of  how much fluid to  use, to always dip the brush in and auto-wipe off the excess if you want to avoid drips, (there's one down the center of the page),do  expect to have to go back in and enhance highlights. One of the difficulties was handling the brush--fitting it to where you wanted to use it. That'll take practice--and a few more brushes. My favorite today was a 1 1/2" house painter's trim brush. You can't get a brush you don't care about cheaper than that.

When I first whetted the painting, 'Oh My God'  immediately flew out of my mouth. The stroke turned the pastels blackish!  I  wondered why  I bothered to put all those lovely colors into the background when they just disappeared with one fluid stroke.  But then they returned when the stroke  dried. They were  blended, but noticeable. The alcohol dried quickly--more so than water--more so than Turpenoid--which had to be put outside in the wind  for a bit to avoid the odor, some classmates objected to.  I didn't notice that the sanded paper had been damaged, as Vianna said it would be. The sanded layer did remain adhered to the backing. --Actually,  the rubbing alcohol worked just fine. I think it will work even better, if I lay the paper flat...

But I'm not going to do anything more to this. I want to play with my own still life to work on this technique, but first I need to make a trip to the market. While I have plenty of pots,  roundish fruit are definitely lacking  in our frig. (I do understand why I see so many lemon and lime paintings online though; those acidic fruits have a long life, very suitable for still lifes--pomegranates too).

Pastel Thursday #1

I had an itch to scratch when I got home: Dried Hydrangeas, 9 x 12, pastel on sanded paper.

My third formal painting class in fifty years, Painterly Pastels, kicked off with getting acquainted with the strange materials I've been collecting, since I signed up last August.

Over the last months, I had bought pastels from three different manufacturers: Nu pastels, Faber Castell and Rembrandt. I didn't go for the high-end stuff. I didn't know the difference between hard, (Nu), soft, (Castell), or medium, (Rembrandt). So I got three popular brands to see what's up?

A simple still life set up for a class of pastel novices. (Sorry the
photo is blurry; I had no where to brace myself as I zoomed in).

I didn't know what sanded paper was either--or why Wallis was so difficult to find, yet people complained about how expensive it was. All was explained. Papers were discussed. The benefit of Wallis sanded paper is it can be used many times over so it really isn't allthat expensive after all. The difference between oils and pastels is pastels are mixed on the support while oils are mixed using a palette. The two mediums, as I had suspected, complimented each other.

After the lecture and some hands-on trial basic value observations were made with our colors, Vianna gave an hour long demonstration. By the end of class, I couldn't wait to get home to try out my materials alone in my own space. After setting up a still life close to what Vianna put together, I spent an hour and a half on my first pastel painting on a professional surface with my variety of hardnesses.  What impressed me most was how sanded paper cut pastel dust down to near nothing making it well worth the expense. In addition of being reusable, sanded paper is wonderful with watercolors as long as you use cheap brushes. The sandy surface grates the hairs.

First order of business: select your palette beginning with the lightest value
you have among your colors. All other values are selected according to lightest value.

Vianna, working and talking us through her creative process, made me very itchy
to try my own hand.

At home, I found a pot with character and luckily had a couple of dried
Hydrangeas I hadn't used for fall flower arrangements. The sheets were a luck too--
two crib sheets left over from one of the grandkids visits. I guess I need to start
collecting still life materials?

And on my bar, once my watercolor station, my framing station, my everything-but-a-bar station, class
continued through my afternoon.  I loved the sanded paper. And the pastels I reached for the most were the Castells.
This medium may push me out of the house into plein air?

The Deaf Woman

The Deaf Woman, pastel, 9 x 11

This hour drawing showed me how much I have to learn about reading values.

Two new books added to my
library. The first books on
portraiture.

The subject was not a play of dark and light, but of cool and warm and that threw me. The woman, my victim, was seated back lighted by a brilliantly lit wall and front lighted by harsh, cool white daylight. I couldn't find enough grayed down warms in the box or enough cool tinted grays. My black had been reduced over the years to a piece no bigger than 3/4 of an inch. Hard to hold. My whites had been reduced to a couple of pieces no bigger than that. It took a lot of try this, try that, overlaying, tapping off the excess dust only to discover I had misread. Having over mixed in white (typical amateur), I finally gave up. My tools are lacking after thirty years; my "ish" colors have been severely decreased. An hour was way too long. I had too much time and went way past impressions deep into the details of her ear.  Poking around that long, I made the poor woman go stone deaf and disfigured.

And one old reference that
will never go to the resale shop.

I came up from the studio and  laid my money down for Vianna's pastel painting course in October. (Just in time too. There were only two slots open). I will walk in to that workshop armed with new tools;sandpaper,alcohol and a ratty old brush I read. I'm way ahead; I've already got the Savignon Blanc.

I intend to walk into a couple of open studios too over the fall/winter season: Saturday morning there's an open studio on figurative drawing and Friday mornings, there's an open studio on figurative oil painting. Both cost thirteen dollars a session, payable on the spot. Both feed my major interest in portraiture. I'm not really interested in drawing nudes, but unclothed or clothed, the models all have heads and hands and feet and ears.

Yesterday two books  worthy of study arrived: Sargent and Sargent Portrait Drawings. An interesting fact was that after Sargent made it as the supreme, go-to, artist for high society portraiture, he began drawing mostly in charcoal and pencil with only two hour sittings and produced very few paintings after switching mediums It is his drawings that told me I had to buck up on the contour approach. It is his drawings that make me work on the deaf woman longer than I should have.

To reread and practice: Light and dark studies;
Johannes Itten, The Art of Color.

Also: Warm and Cool; Johannes Itten, The Art of Color.

Light and Dark and contour line; Sargent Portrait Drawings

My favorite light and dark Sargent drawing. Look at the range of grays . Spectacular. An
old time portrait with a modern abstract flare.  Sargent Portrait Drawings.

 In my Amazon cart, I still have Rembrandt and Henry Yan's Figure Drawings. Next month's disposable income expenditure.

Too Many Spy Movies

Pastel,  8 x 10 on charcoal paper
Values were easier to see with pastels than with oils. They're were also less demanding.
There were no brushes to constantly clean. 

"So what did you learn in school today dear?"

 "Nothin' much. --Well, maybe something?"

 I sat down to see for myself. Using pastels,(my legs are still recovering). This forty minute drawing was a value challenge, except, it was easier to select the values for the palette the way the colors were laid out in the  box. I didn't care about how the drawing came out. I just wanted to continue the practice--eyeballing the measurements, determining the values, playing up the shapes, underplaying the lines. In October, Vianna is teaching painting with pastels. I was thinking of signing up for the six week course to strengthen my new way of seeing. My legs can take three hours of standing once a week much better than six hours plus for four days in a row; cement flooring is not my friend. I thought I should make the commitment while I was still energized.

 I took a photograph of this woman sitting behind Ellis at lunch today--actually I took a few. She was leaning against the glass enclosure of the porch where we were seated. I made it look like I was taking a picture of honey. Then, just as I was about to push down on the shutter, I told him to shift away and ruin my shot. He did beautifully.  We've seen way too many spy movies; we were really smooth.

Pastel Impression

Dutch Blue

Somewhere in Holland there's a city street on a canal that has what looks like a blue apartment building with yellow window and door casings. and a red orange roof.  It must be a notable tourist attraction for I found the reference photo in a Tauck tour publication.  The colors got me. I tore the photo out and used it to further explore pastels as a sketching medium.  I definitely need to renew my supplies, but the texture of my paper is fine.  I could use more grayed down colors. This drawing is  garish--too primary. I seem to be out of whack these days. I haven't a clue why. Makes me sad. I think I'll give this up till tranquility returns to my household. I say that, but I won't be able to. I need to make my marks to keep myself myself.

Lazy Day Pastel To The Tune From Jaws

Morning Coffee with Pastels

Brutus Roth

It was a delightfully sunny morning on the deck with my pastels. Then the clouds came in  and brought the rain.

Our plans to go swimming with the kids while their parents were at the NASCAR race got changed to watching every Jaws movie ever made. The monotony of  a multitude of teenagers screaming and getting eaten by the  thirty five foot mechanical beast was broken when Uncle Steve came by with Brutus who was delighted to have young children fawn over him. I was delighted that they whacked him out long enough for me to take a  a relatively decent photo.

The dog is really sweet. How could anybody abandon such a beauty? There must have been an economic
catastrophe where he was sacrificed for the welfare of the family. He might be my first dog portrait.  There's money to be made in them there hills. People love portraits of grandchildren and  pets.

Painting with pastels was sweet too. Plenty of spontaneity.  I  think  I prefer them to watercolors for small works. They suit my temperament...My grandson just sat down at the piano and played the chords from the Jaws theme!

He has never played the piano before. When he couldn't figure out what came next, he moved on to play a series of chords: major, minor, diminished, augmented. (Follow the link if curious about what those terms mean).  He then chose one and started to make up the melody with his right hand.  Erin shouted," JD shut up!" I didn't say a word. keyboard  for the holidays was what I was thinking.  

Pastel Frenzy

There's nothing like pastels on the patio to sooth the soul. I was still too distraught to paint seriously in the studio. I was too distraught to stay indoors while the sun was shining life, the thermometer read eighty three and everything was sprouting up green in the garden. Blogger had made me crazy, but I wasn't crazy enough to miss the day. I took my pastels, the very box I had from some graphic art course, a pad of Strathmore and set up shop on the deck's teak table. Plein Air would be my agenda. Serenity was all around, but not in the woods. While spots of green were dotted about promising, the trees were still skeletons dressed in winter drab. I could see the lake, a good thing for some, a bad thing for me who celebrates the growing season. The scene suggested harsh gestures, out of place in the balmy climate, but I responded to my observation. Nothing much came from the truth.

On my second pass, I tried to make the painting look as I felt. I kept adding,and adding, till one more layer of chalk would block the sun and plummet my spirit. It was then that I like it.