PASTEL STUDIES

April 2021 - Pastel on Mi Tientes Touch (sand)

#1

This is the first attempt at pastel painting in a loose and fairly abstract style. The idea is to paint alla prima and complete the painting as quickly as possible. This style of pastel painting is an antidote to my current oil painting practice which incorporates lots of glazing and is slow and methodical.

It is not a bad first attempt but I will be aiming for a greater degree of abstraction and serendipity. In other words I intend to work away from the photo reference rather than toward it.

April 2021 - Pastel on Mi Teintes Touch (light blue)

#2

The aim with this version was to weaken the strong diagonals (particularly the one in the centre), lift the horizon line in the top left corner, restrict the working time to one hour and refer only to the previous study and not the photo reference.

What did I learn? First of all I learnt that the sand coloured paper is a better choice for an imprimitura than the light blue paper of this study. Secondly, I restricted my time to one hour to see if that would help achieve a looser painting but I just ended up rushing! So the answer is to work quickly while allowing the painting to find it’s own completion time. Thirdly, in trying to remove the straightness of the central diagonaI I have increased the mid ground making the image less effective as a landscape. While looking for greater abstraction I must also retain the integrity of the landscape. It is not an abstract painting but trees, mountains and fields are abstracted down to their simplest forms.