demonstrationMASTER hINTS AND TIPS
- Before working with pastels, always
tear the label off and break a piece
about 20mm long to work with. Write
the manufacturer’s name and colour
details on a chart before you do this. - Always use the best quality pastels
you can afford. Save money to buy
the colours you will use the most.
Buying large boxed sets is very
exciting, but there are many colours
which you may never use. Use the
best acid free toothed paper you can
afford and always choose the colour
according to the type of mood you
want to project in your painting.- Try and use your camera for
reference purposes only. The
camera’s lense does not work
the way your eyes do, and what
you get on a photograph is
not what is actually there. - Learn to see what is there
with your eyes; not what
your brain thinks is there.- Break rules sometimes! Don’t
rigidly adhere to each and every
rule so that you forget about
expressing how you really feel. - If you have the freedom to do so,
paint only what you love ... and enjoy
every stroke. Your emotions should
pour out of you into the painting;
regardless of what the critics say.
STEP FIVEUsing all the colours shown in the
Materials List, I started adding
and working on the bushes and the
flowers. Thus far I had not used the
points or tips of my pastels at all
(they had been applied edgewise and
slanted onto the paper throughout,
so that it was more like painting
with a brush and not a pencil). I
manipulated and teased the pastels,
and tried to see how I could make
the flowers flow into each other and
come alive. At the same time I used
both Schmincke Light Ochre and
Unison A29 simultaneously to make
them merge and run into each other
and recreate the undulating sea sand.
I used Rembrandt Olive Green to
suggest the trailing greenery which
wanders at will on the dunes.
STEP SIX
Something really extraordinary and
wonderful happened here. The paint
seemed to flow from my fingers and
there was nothing and nobody but my
painting and myself in the universe.
Sadly this altered state doesn’t happen
very often ... but if it did we would
all probably die from a lack of food
and sleep. Using all my pastels here
(with the exception of white), I
simply painted. I built up the plants,
moved the sand as the wind would;
and then finally (using Schmincke
White) I started to play with the
waves breaking over the swells.
It was very important to have a really
good look at the painting and make
sure that everything was correct. I
noticed that my values for the distant
bushes were too strong and warm,so I used Unison BG2 to cool the
shadows; simultaneously reflecting
the same shade as the sea. This also
applied to the flowers facing the light- they needed the yellow reflection
of the sun bouncing off them.
I finally blurred the outline of
the horizon with sea mist and took
a digital photograph so I could
carefully look at the picture in its
entirety on my computer monitor.
FINAL STEP
I added final stabs of white to bring
a sparkle and shine to my painting
and then I signed it and left it alone
... because I knew that any further
additions or alterations would ruin this
act of love. This is the most difficult
thing to do with any painting! nSTEP FIVE STEP SIX