High Noon

Here is my pastel of Michael as Gary Cooper in High Noon . the drawing is done on a rough hand-made paper as I felt it suited the subject.  I love doing figure drawing and I feel that drawing is really important. I usually do Life Drawing once a week and save some drawings, The warm-up one and two-minute poses are drawn on newsprint and I usually just put them in the recycling bin. Right now  I am drawing with a white pencil on black paper - just exploring the effects of the light making highlights on the figure. There are more pages in the black sketchbook than I originally thought so it is going to be awhile before I get back to colour. Maybe I'll work with water-soluble crayons then - or even watercolour for awhile. This pastel work is from a different day - usually every other week - when we have a "long pose" and I often  work in mixed media - in my case - pastel over acrylic and acrylic pastel gel which you can see in previous posts.

Christmas Elf

Well, here is another "long pose" from the last Friday session before Christmas. Since we are still in the "holiday season", I thought I could still post a pastel of an elf. Again, this is my multi-media process that I am working on - first the sketch in one colour of hard pastel on watercolour paper.  Then colour washes with three primaries in acrylic. Blow-dryer--- then apply acrylic pastel ground medium... this is quite gritty. Blow dry again -- then work in pastels. Each time is a little different - not just the model and the pose, but also how I mix and blend the paint layer. The pastels are different on a coloured surface, of course, and different as the under-colours vary. I'm enjoying trying out different effects each time. I'm not sure where I am going with this, but I just got some more watercolour paper and I intend to keep working on more figure drawings with this technique. Another bonus is that sheets of paper don't take up a lot of room.

Back View- drawing or painting?

Here is a pastel from a week ago. There is some discussion in the pastel side of the art scene as to whether pastels are drawing or paintings. I usually think of mine as drawings since there is visible paper... as there is in this case. I used a tinted paper, but it is still paper. If a pastel is covered from edge to edge, then it gets considered to be a painting. The pigment that forms the chalks used is the same pigment used in paints. In acrylic paints, for example, the pigment is suspended in a plastic emulsion. Pastel is a combination of chalk, pigment and a binder. Paper is usually textured to hold the pastel in place and finished works are displayed under glass for protection. However, they are as lasting works of art as any other medium. Unframed, they are easy to store and take up less space than canvases. Since I love doing figure drawings but they don't really sell in this marketplace, I'll continue with pastels for figure work on a general basis. They also give a chance to play with colour in a different way. I was pleased to have a good chance to work on a back view.