Artist's Drawing & Inspiration - USA (2019-09)

46 ArtistDrawingandInspiration

DEMONSTRATION

hard pastels on the bottom of the
bigger branch, then using lavender
and mid-brown hard pastels to
colour the bark on the top.
Lastly I used a light warm grey
hard pastel to gently drag the colours
together and around the branch,
making sure under the birds, the

bottom of the branch and where the

vertical branch joins were keep slightly

darker than the rest of the branch.

FINAL STEP

More of the very pale blue is added to

the rest of the background and gently

blended in with my fingers. When I

reached the top of the branch I started

adding some soft white to the blue

and gradually using only the white at

the very bottom under the branch.

Now for the highlights. A small dab

of orange was added to the brown eyes

to give more depth and I used a very

soft white for the highlight in the iris.

Then using a white pencil I put in a

small line around the eyes. I added

some dark blue to the edges of the

beak and blended in a little white on

both the top and bottom of the beak.

Using a pale blue Conte pastel pencil

I added more colour over some of the

feathers on the wings. More white was

added to the ends of the flight feathers.

With pencils I added some white

and very dark brown lines to the

creases in the bark, and using the

side of the white pastel I put in some

light clouds. Lastly I sprayed the

whole painting with Spectra Fix.

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ARTIST’S HINTS AND TIPS

• I am sure you all have heard
  this before, a reminder never
  goes astray. It is very important
  to get your drawing as accurate
  as you can, because putting
  colour on an imperfect drawing
  will not make it better.


• Practice, practice, practice
  and your drawing will
  eventually come naturally.


• Try drawing upside down, this
  method frees you of any pre-
  conceived ideas you might have
  on how your subject should look.


• I have used a combination of
  pastel types mainly because I
  find that the colours I like are not
  always available in all brands.


• Use the Putty rubber for
  lifting off when you have too

much pastel on your paper

• I chose a white paper because
  I wanted the background sky
  to be very pale and then I drew
  straight onto the paper using
  a mid-grey pastel pencil.


• If you are not confident with
  drawing, draw up on cartridge paper
  and trace or use the grid method.


• Even though I was pleased with
  this first photograph with the new
  camera, I left out a couple of the
  branches and moved the foliage for
  the sake of a better composition.

Using Fixatives With Pastel

• Some people don’t use fixatives
  at all, as they can dull some
  colours if you use too much. My
  preference is to use the standard

fixative during the creative process

where slight colour changes

don’t matter, and to help protect

from smudging as you work.

• Lastly I use a product called
  SPECTRA FIX from the USA
  which doesn’t seem to dull the
  colours as much, however I find
  you can’t work back over the top
  as with the standard fixatives so
  I only use it as a final spray.

Framing

• I have seen the most wonderful
  paintings ruined with the wrong
  choice of frame, the frame should
  add to your painting not detract
  from it, so if choosing is difficult
  for you ask your framer or your
  friends for their opinions.

STEP THREE