Showing posts with label pastels on canvas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pastels on canvas. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Painting with Pastel on Canvas

Ahhhhhhhhh!  Today I finally got back into drawing!  I taught a pastel class at the studio today, and, since I only have 2 students in the class, I gave myself permission to draw while they were working - it just isn't helpful, I don't believe, to stand over their shoulders the whole time they're working.  I didn't want to do something persnickety, so I decided to do a fairly simple figure study of the model I photographed most recently.  She was terrific to work with - open and comfortable in her body and terrific about sharing of herself.  I got some wonderful pictures of her but hadn't had a chance to work from them yet, so I could feel a little bit of excitement today as I glanced through the shots to figure out which to work from. 

I found one I liked then cropped it.  I had a 24" square canvas which I'd painted then painted over with glop from the bottom of my turpenoid jar so it was textured and slightly mauvey-pink.  Perfect!  I didn't want to feel pressure to do anything perfectly.  I decided to use pastels on the canvas - a very unusual thing to do, as far as I know, because pastels don't stick to canvas so well, but I decided I'd use fixative like crazy and see what happened.  I NEVER use fixative - just ask my students - it changes the texture and color of the pastels in ways I don't like - but I figured I'd try something new.  Why not?  I'm on vacation - I have all summer to experiment - I may as well try something new.  If it doesn't work, I can always paint over it again and do something new.

Fortunately for me, I like how it turned out.  (For all I can write what I wrote about "who cares?", I'm actually quite a perfectionist and get very disappointed if something doesn't turn out well!  But pretending I don't care gives me permission to do things I would otherwise be too anal to try.  It's a good way to trick myself.

I can see some things I need to work on- her finger is too light, for example, but mostly I'm very pleased with it.  I like the texture a lot - I think it fits her stance and her body shape well.

I haven't come up with a title yet.  I want to name it after the model, but usually refrain from doing that in case the model isn't too excited about that possibility!  Any suggestions?