“I’m trying to achieve light, energy and movement, and a balance
of colors, so that when people look at one of my paintings, their
reaction is, ‘That’s beautiful’—regardless of where it is.”
is dry, it’s always possible to go over
it with a white pastel to disguise
what’s underneath.
Darlow favors bucolic landscapes
and stormy seascapes, but snow
scenes are his first love, as in Fading
Light (on pages 34-35). “It’s set on the
golf course on which my home abuts,”
he says. “It’s about where I live, and
I absolutely love that painting.” It
also represents the first time he usedPanPastels, a unique pan-format
pastel, which he now favors.
Darlow rarely uses fixative on his
paintings, primarily because he uses
so little pastel. “I do find, though,
when working in a sort of watercolor
style with my PanPastels, a fixative
slightly darkens it a little bit and
gives it more of a boost,” he says.
He also uses Unisons and
Rembrandts, having cut his teeth onthe former. “I’ve graded each pastel
brand and compared each to a pencil
grade,” he says. “I think the Unison
pastel is like an HB of the pencil
world. It has a consistency that’s
perfect for any paper, whereas other
brands may be more suited to specific
types of paper. I like Conté, too, for
drawing and adding fine lines.”
Darlow’s combination of mate-
rials and techniques results in36 Pastel Journal OCTOBER 2019