OIL PASTELS
I don’t think I’ve written about these pieces before, and since they are in a different medium to what I normally work in I thought it might be interesting to put them into a post.
They are all done with oil pastels on paper…basically these are like adult crayons! They come in a beautiful range of colours (no colour mixing necessary!) and by using one over another you can blend them.
You normally get a ‘clear’ one in a box too…this can be used first to ‘save’ any bits of white paper. You can then scratch back to reveal white. If you don’t use the clear one first, and try scratching back - you will find that the coloured pastel has stained the surface of the paper and you can’t scratch back to ‘white’ anymore. Scratching back is useful to create highlights and fine detail - the twist of the rope/ window frames etc.
I really like the luminosity of these pieces and they all hang in my house, as St Ives holds many happy memories for me. But I stopped doing them after 5 pieces because it felt like I was just colouring in!
ST IVES HARBOUR III - OIL PASTEL ON PAPER - A3
ST IVES HARBOUR V - OIL PASTEL ON PAPER - A2
ST IVES HARBOUR II - OIL PASTEL ON PAPER - A2
NOT JUST A PRETTY FACE - OIL PASTEL ON PAPER - A2
It wasn’t till I did this piece that I realised that boats have registration numbers - just like cars do…St Ives is SS. I used my ‘artistic licence’ to change the name on the blue boat …Tess you got a boat named after you in the end!
ST IVES HARBOUR IV - OIL PASTEL AND FINELINER ON PAPER - A2
I love the distorted reflections on this one…it’s amazing how different the same scene looks in and out of the coloured square.