I am a restless soul. I wish I was not..... I wish I was one of those people who are consistent in their art. I, on the other hand thrive on challenge. Just when I started to feel I am sort of getting comfortable doing mixed media paintings/collages, I jumped into a completely new medium, Pastel!! I was a pastel "virgin", so to say! Never really worked with this medium before. We had to take pastel in collage as a mandatory course but I am sorry to say, I learned nothing from that class! First of all the teacher was not enthusiastic and as a result the course was more like a chore rather than being a pleasurable experience!
I wanted to really learn this medium and thankfully I met Claudia Post, a master pastelist, exhibiting at the same gallery where I show my work! Under her guidance, I am learning so much!! I had no idea that you can actually paint with pastel! We used turpentine with pastel to actually block in the shapes before we went into the" pastel"(hatching, scribbling, pointillism, etc) aspect. Once washed with turp, the under painting doesn't look that different from a oil painting in its initial stage.......I learned that pastel can be used as flatly or as texturally as we want!
I love to draw, so drawing with color appeals to me!. Combining my love of color and drawing to create an artwork seems like best of both worlds. The fact that soft pastels are mainly pure pigments, can give a painitng such depth that it fascinates me! It is just a start but I am going to pursue the medium till I get comfortable with it and its many nuances. The response I am getting for my pastel work is very encouraging and that will keep me going! Not that I will stop my mixed media works! It will always be my primary medium..... They appeal to me for completely different reasons! I can use unrelated objects to make a cohesive painting and at the same time do my share, in a very small way, to recycle products that has been relegated to trash.....It is such a cerebral enterprise, like solving a puzzle and who doesn't like puzzles??
Onto the studio for me and a happy creative week to you!
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| Pear and Citrus 12"x16", Pastel, 2011 |
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| Arrangement in Blues, 12"x16", Pastel, 2011 |
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| Green Jar, 11x14", Pastel, 2011 |
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| Creeping Shadows, 8"x10", Pastel, 2011 |
