pastel scribbler sep2012

The Pastel Scribbler September 2012

[Skriv text]


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In this issue

Editorial Scribble ...................................................................................................... 2

Get Dusty Challenge Results ................................................................................... 3

Meet The Get Dusty Winner: Sharron Blackmore .................................................. 6

Sharron Shares Her Method For Painting Fur ........................................................ 9

How To Make New Pastels From Crumbs, Bits, Nubbins, And Dust.................. 11

Editorial Scribble

It is lovely to see you all again after the

summer holidays.

In this issue, you meet Get Dusty winner

Sharron Blackmore, who tells her story of how

she stumbled into pastel painting.

Painting fur has its challenges, and Sharron

shows us a way to achieve that glossy or curly

softness, by building on a basic coat of pastel

with the correct values, on page 9.

I am generally more than happy leaving the

messy job of making pastels to the experts who

really know the tricky business of balancing

binders and pigments. But there are a few

times when I do some of the work: When I

have collected lots of bits and crumbs from

sticks, heaps of dust which has fallen off a

painting, or when I want a custom-mixed stick to get a colour which is not in that

brands range. Page 11.

May the dust be with you,

Charlotte Herczfeld

Cover image: Contemplation,

by Sharron Blackmore

The Scribbler Team

The current team:

Charlotte Herczfeld, edits, writes, does layout

Ruth Mann, edits, writes, and proof-reads

Contact: [email protected]


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Get Dusty Challenge Results The winner of the April challenge Old Shoes is Ryan Evans, UK. The prize

is a set of 3 pastels from our new sponsor Henri Roch pastels, of La Maison

du Pastel.

First place: Contemplation,

by Sharron Blackmore

(See cover for larger version.)

The Jury says: There is a wealth of wisdom in these

eyes, natures own wisdom. The rendering of the fur

and the bare skin on the ears are very well done. The

warm orange in the fur is exactly the right amount to

give the painting both warmth and stillness. The

artist has used the background well by increasing

contrast where the action is (the face and eyes) and

lowered contrast in areas which are of less

importance, and makes good use of lost and found

edges. The handling of the fur is excellent,

particularly at the ridge which frames the face. The

artist says one thing with the painting, and it is

eloquent indeed. Very well done.

Second place:

Magic Hour, by Eve Miller

The Jury says: The artist has chosen an extra long format, and balanced it well by letting the sky

dominate and keeping the beautifully dark water and the land mass to a minimum. Bright and intense

is balanced by darker muted colours. The layered colours give that extra glow to the sky.


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Shared Third place: Water tank in the evening sun

by Kerstin Birk

The Jury says: has

conveyed the evening

mood in a marvelous

way. The pretty

scenery with the

evening sun is

beautifully balanced

by the obviously

manmade water tank.

The values are very

well balanced. A good

example of making a

beautiful painting with

an object regarded as

rather ugly. Beauty is

in the artists eye and hand.

Shared Third place:

Green Striped,

by Steffi Decker

The Jury says: The warm

green in the apple in the

midst of the cold green

stripes in the cloth is so

well handled. The wraps

with its warm shadows

give the painting interest

and life. The artist has

gone beyond the reference

photo and added

enlivening colours and

reflected light to

otherwise flat and murky

areas. Excellent high

realism.


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Finalists

See

larger

images

in the

Summer

2012

Get

Dusty

Gallery

Embarrassed Mad Man

by Jim Humphreys

The Jury says: A playful (!) approach

where a loose handling makes a fine

contrast to the geometrical elements. The

apple as the only splash of colour really

pops. When you want to give a strong and

unambiguous message, a central

placement of the area of interest is

especially efficient. It is balanced by the

light coming from the left gradating to

darker at the right. There is just enough

difference between left and right overall

to give life to the painting. The notes are

suggested just enough. This artist has

taken a difficult subject and done well

with it.

by Ole Hedeager

The Jury says: A very skilfully made

portrait painted in sparse colours. The eyes

penetrate your very soul and are even a bit

scary. The different textures are painted

successfully in this vignette, where the

blurred edge at the chest area gives a good

fading into the background. The light is

handled very well.


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Meet the Get Dusty Winner: Sharron

Blackmore Interviewed by Charlotte Herczfeld

How did you get started in pastels?

I hurt my foot while dog walking and was

told to stay off my feet. Great....going on

holiday with my husband and dogs and I was

going to have to sit and twiddle my thumbs for

a week. Well, to cut a short story shorter, that

is how I started painting, and that was three

years ago. I had tried in the past, several times

but never with any success as I just didn't

know what to do or for what reason.

What changed? I do believe that you have

to be in the right place at the right time and this

was my right time, even if it was due to a

painful injury. Pastel I had tried years ago but I

now discovered pastel pencils and fell in love.

I still use soft pastels and also harder square

ones too.

Being in the middle of building work,

pastels were perfect to just pick up and put

down when needed and I never wanted to use

anything else. I picked up oils to learn more

about colour mixing and effects and my work

in both mediums are worked very similarly.

Do you paint from life, or do you use

reference material? What do you aim at

capturing on paper?

As 99% of my paintings are of animals and

generally portrait type although not always, I

have to use photos. I do work from the photos

and crop on the computer for the best

composition, so I rarely do thumbnails. My

main focus is the expression and emotion of

the animal. I am drawn to capturing what we

think of as the fleeting thought passing through

the animals mind. Backgrounds I only include

if necessary, otherwise it detracts from the

main area of focus and I want that focus firmly

on the animal. I would rather create an

atmospheric backdrop than a landscape,

although I have done those too.

Which papers do you prefer, what works

best for your technique?

I sometimes use Velour and also Fisher

400 and also Uart, but Pastelmat seems to be

the one I use the most.

http://www.abrushwithanimals.com

Far Away


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In the Forum of the Pastel Guild of Europe

there was recently a discussion about how

artists give titles to their works. Are titles

important to your works?

Titles are something which often just pop

into my head. Contemplation took eighteen

months waiting for a title, others have one

before they are completed. I love to have a title

before starting a painting but it doesn't always

happen. It also gives me something to let my

mind work on whilst the painting gets

underway. It is in my mind from the selection

of the reference.

Can you say a bit about your working

process?

I always get the eyes in first and then I will

start the background before I start the rest of

the animal. I always go back and change

anything that requires it so I don't worry about

things been altered. That way I can work either

in sections or over the whole piece at a time

without the stress of a finished section that

doesn't quite match up with what I want. I

made a board with Velcro around the raised

edges and a Mahl stick with Velcro so that I

can work wherever I want on a painting and

yet keep it from smudging, yet still have my

wrist supported and both hands free.

You say you work from photos.

What is the best way to view them,

for painting purposes?

My latest art toy is an iPad with

an absolutely brilliant new high

resolution screen. I can blow up

parts of images if I need to and the

colour on screen is absolutely

stunning. No more trying to match

those printers and photos or wasted

ink and paper. I set it up on a table

easel between my pastels and

painting making it fairly easy to

judge colours needed. You can see it

in the photo, it is missing the iPad

though as I took the photo with it. I

take lots of photos throughout my

paintings progress, I find it really

helps to see the painting afresh and I

often turn them into black &white along with

the reference photo for comparison.

Do you paint what you like, or do you take

commissions, or both?

I have already achieved so much in a fairly

short time which started with winning the SAA

2011 June Atherton Award for best beginner.

This year I had my little pastel cheetah cub

selected as a runner up in the Animal &

Wildlife section. I also submitted two

paintings, one which was Contemplation to the

Cheetah Cub


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National Exhibition of Wildlife Artists which

has a panel of five on the jury and not only

were they both accepted, they both sold on the

preview evening. I have had joint exhibitions

and sold well too and also have gallery

representation. I do accept commissions but I

am very selective in what I pick. I must have

an interest in the painting, it has to have

something for me to grab hold of as money

doesn't drive me, and it has to be something I

would want to paint. I have just completed a

second racehorse for an owner so I must be

doing something right, and I do admit that I do

enjoy painting horses.

What are your plans for the future?

What next? Haven't got a clue, my art

seems to have its own agenda and I am happy

to go along with what it wants to do or be, I

think I am happy just going along for the ride.

Ready to Launch


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Sharron shares her method for painting fur

My method of working is methodical in a

disorganised way.

I tend to block either a mid tone or dark

under shadow in and then just push the

pastel into the paper normally with

Pastelmat I use a colour shaper or my

fingers. I drive the pastel in and then start

building detail right from the beginning,

always following the hair direction.

Looking for shadows, highlighted areas,

stray hairs, curly , straight, frizzy, glossy,

undercoat and topcoat. The gaps and

chunks that can form, wet fur, dry fur,

unkempt bits of hair. All of the

underlying structure that builds depth.

Look at it and understand how it is built

layer upon layer with all of the colours

that go to build those layers up.

Each layer will have many strokes and

also colours finished by once again

pushing the pastel into the paper. The

layer beneath doesn't disappear, but it is

slightly softened and muted. When it gets

to the topmost layers I stop pushing the

pastel into the paper and start what I call

a twist and curl with a pencil or soft

pastel.


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Lay the pencil loosely between the

thumb and first and second fingers,

twisting the pencil and allowing the

weight of the pencil to make the mark.

You can get some wonderful stray and

crinkling fur using this method as it

doesn't disturb the underlayers at all.

You can pull or push the pencil as you

twist and turn the pastel, cutting in to

parts that need defining.

In the pictures of the tiger you can see how each stage was built with random strokes layered and re-

layered with extra colours added by both glazing and individual strokes.

If you use a printed reference then I suggest actually laying the pastel against it to judge the colours

more accurately. It is surprising just how far away you can be without realising. You do get better at

judging colours and it can be a good tester to see how accurate you are.

Serenity


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How to make new pastels from crumbs, bits, nubbins, and dust

by Charlotte Herczfeld

When what is left of a pastel stick is

too small to hold, what do you do with

it do you throw it away, or do you save it? What about crumbs and the

crushed remains of that stick that fell

onto the concrete floor?

Save them all, and make new pastels

from them! Here is how you can do it.

You will need some materials:

A sheet of glass

A single edge blade

Plastic bags ( about 1 litre)

Plastic gloves

Plastic or wooden spoons

A hammer

A piece of cardboard

Newspapers

A tray

A mask (dont breathe in the pastel dust)

An eyedropper

A glass of distilled water

A damp rag

I collect all small bits of pastel, and store them separated from each other by hue, but I do put all

brands and all values into the same container, just to make life simple.

When you paint, a lot of fine dust falls off the painting. You can collect that dust with a dust catcher

under the lower edge of the painting and store in containers. This dust will give you neutrals.

Put the bits and ends into a plastic bag. Put the

bag on some newspapers on a sturdy surface.

Use the hammer to crush the pastel bits into

powder. This powder will not be very fine, and

that is OK.


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Then you have a choice of adding the

water to the powdered pigment in the

plastic bag (I do that for the fall-off dust,

to avoid getting too much of it airborne),

or pour the pigment out on the sheet of

glass (for the more grainy dust crushed

by hammer), make a hole in the middle

of the heap and add water into the crater.

Take the spoon and knead the

water and pigments into a paste.

Add more water as needed drop by drop and take care to not over-saturate the mixture with

water. Use the spoon to crush any

remaining larger particles.

As the paste is smeared out on

the glass, scrape it together with

the single edge blade when

needed.

Also, when you need to clean the

sheet of glass between colours,

do start with scraping off the

paste using the single edge blade,

and then you can wipe off the

remaining pigment with a wet

rag.


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Knead the doughy paste with your

fingers, and form into a roll in the

palms of your hands. Cut the roll

in bits.

Take each bit and roll them

between your palms. A pastel

stick can have any shape, so you

could put these to dry.

If you want neater sticks, take that piece of

cardboard and gently roll the clump of

paste with the flat of it, on a newspaper.

That will give you more uniform sticks.


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Put the sticks to dry on a newspaper on

top of a tray. The tray provides stability

so you can easily move the drying

sticks.

About three years of collecting crumbs

and dust, and an afternoons work, gave me 37 new pastels. They are admittedly

slightly more brittle than bought ones,

but they work just fine.

This process is a bit messy. Change

plastic bags and gloves often. Clean the

sheet of glass, the spoons and the single

edge blade between each colour.

From the neutral dust I got a good

number of sticks which I made really

thin, as I plan to use them for drawing

the subject onto the pastel paper.

Neutrals will not show up as bright

edges.

I also experimented with combining an

ultramarine piece of a stick with a

permanent rose, as I wanted to see if I

could make a good vibrant violet. I

found out that the ultramarine

overpowers the permanent rose, but that

it looks promising (leftmost short sticks,

one is mixed with white). I will try

again with different proportions.

In all, Im getting good use out of about Euro 100 worth of bits and nubbins and dust.

Extra tip: In a similar manner, you can save a dropped and crushed stick. Just take all the crumbs and

dust, crush it even more, and add water and form into a new stick.


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Get Dusty and Apprentice Challenge Announcement

Get Dusty September 2012:

Category: Landscape

Challenge: Interior "scape"

Deadline: 25th September 2012

Get Dusty October 2012:

Category: Portrait

Challenge: A Portrait with a mood. Convey an emotion

Deadline: 25th October 2012

Get Dusty November 2012:

Category: Still Life

Challenge: Set-up with complementary colours

Deadline: 25th November 2012

The Apprentice Challenge has the same themes, only one month later.

Remember, all members can participate in the Get Dusty, while no Journeyer is allowed to take part

in the Apprentice Challenge.

Questions? Log in and ask in the Forum.

Recent discussions in the members Forum on the PGE website:

How to paint animals, How to paint trees, How to emphasise an aspect of a still-life and keep the

supportive aspects in place, How to title landscapes and why, Help with peer critique and much

more!

Log in and join in!

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