Member-only story
COMPOSITION IN THE ROUND SERIES
Making a Beautiful Mess
Organized chaos in pastel
Soft pastel (which is NOT oil pastel) is a beautiful medium. It captures any subject in a soft, expressive manner that is very similar to an oil painting, but with a little more convenience as there is no waiting for it to dry. BUT, it makes a MESS! It creates a storm cloud of dust that gets everywhere, if you are working indoors, you need to protect all surfaces near your easel. And definitely do not work in an area where there is a rug that you care about without putting down a drop cloth.
That said, it is the messiness that I find appealing about the end result that you get. Let’s face it, I am not a formal buttoned-up, every-hair-in-place type of painter. I like things loose and expressive, I like to see the hand of the artist in every stroke. Pastel is wonderful for achieving this type of look.
Organization: The Underpainting is Key
All of my pastel drawings start out the same way that my oil paintings do, with an underpainting. The purpose of the underpainting, which is an Old Masters technique, is to establish the composition on the surface of the paper or canvas, and to establish a value map of dark and light values. This ensures that you will start out with a drawing and…
