Couldn't find any books at my branch of the library for pastel work. There was a section in McDaniels' The Drawing Book that had a two page spread as another form of drawing on soft pastels and had a sort of demonstration without really telling anything. Took some clues from that to give me sort of the idea. On tinted 80lb Strathmore Pastel paper 11"x14" with my really yucky Reeves soft pastels and a couple Derwint Pastel pencils. For your amusement. The actual is a bit more brighter than this.
3 comments:
Great use of color and the variety of strokes make this work! Good Job Alan
Here are some things that helped me with my pastel work. First, I did a lot of black and white drawings before I ever started with the pastels. Second, I actually learned a lot from studying Edger Degas' figure pastel drawings, especially his later figurative works. I not only looked and observed his techniques, I also copied a few of his drawings to get a deeper understanding of pastel effects. Though copying may sound like a boring approach, it is something that almost all the masters did in order to educate themselves.
Another thing I learned is that you can begin your initial strokes with soft pastels and complete your drawing with hard pastels.
Finally, if you want to use fixative for your pastels use caution as fixatives can dull your colors. Don't directly spray fixative on the surface, just mist the air a couple of feet above the pastel drawing. I one read that you can fix a pastel by using steam from a tea kettle but have never tried it.
Anyway, great job with all the artwork on your blog. It is inspiring to me to continue to be motivated to be creative daily
I really like what you did with this. Especially those trees - very nice. Hope you do more with pastels, they are a fun media to work in.
Post a Comment