68 Artists&Illustrators
I add an odd stroke of blue or green to
the cat’s fur to suggest reflected light
needs to be primed. I use Art
Spectrum’s Colourfix Primer for this.
Similarly, I only ever use permanent
pigments because I don’t want my
paintings to fade. If you want to sell
your work, you owe it to the client
to use the best materials.
For animal portraits, I love the
softness and matt finish of pastels,
and they are really good for fur.Pastels are chunky and need room
[for the marks], so draw on a full
sheet of pastel paper. If you want to
go tiny, use watercolours instead.
As I create “life-size” paintings,
another consideration is the picture
plane. The frame of a picture is like a
window and a person rarely goes up
to the glass, whereas the subject of
the artwork will always be positionedfurther back from the frame. The
distance this creates means if you
paint something a little smaller than
it is in reality, it will still look life-sized.COLOUR CONTROL
All my major works start in the same
way: I use a stick of charcoal or a
Conté à Paris Pierre Noire charcoal
pencil to loosely draw the subject
before blocking in the general colours
and forms with pastel. Begin with
darker pigments, otherwise you’ll
really muddy the lighter colours. It’s
also easy to over-estimate how lightRIGHT Panthera
Tigris Altaica,
pastel on museum
board, 71.1 x66cm