Moody
Views in Pastels
A
good attendance of 44 members and visitors enjoyed an outstanding demonstration
in the use of pastels by Graham Cox on
Wednesday 17th
February 2010 at Musbury Village Hall.
Graham
explained the use of a mid tone paper which has an amount of ‘tooth’
carefully designed to capture the pastel material and he started his
first moody view picture of a seascape with mountains using only a restricted
palette of Unison soft pastel sticks. Initially applying broad sweeps
and swirls of colour to the paper on which the background picture had
been traced using black carbon paper from an initial pencil sketch,
the resulting mix of material was suddenly transformed into soft glowing
colours and clouds using simply the heel of his hand. This magical approach
of short tight cicular motion and lots of pressure to push the background
pastel into the paper formed the underpainting to which he added more
sweeps of colour again mixing and merging with fingers and this time
using only a light pressure to achieve a wonderful set of effects.
After
a break for tea and biscuits, questions and close examination of the
first picture, Graham’s second picture started in a similar manner and
continued to show how buildings and trees could be easily incorporated
into a true winter landscape view. The definition of the buildings and
the application of delicate strokes with pastel pencil followed by light
dabs of colours using the tip of a little finger brought the skeletal
trees to life on the paper, referred to as ‘painting by fingers’. Graham’s
clear skill and fluent style was an inspiration to all who attended
and he even made a deliberate mistake to show how items can be corrected
on a picture if a disaster occurs. This demonstration is to be followed
up by an all day workshop by Graham Cox on Saturday 20th
March where a limited number of places are available at a visitor cost
of £20.00 per person, £18 members.
Our
next meeting is on the 17th
March with Jake Winkle demonstrating “Skies in Watercolour”. Visitors
are always welcome. Enquiries to Rita Sugden telephone 01297 442266
Publicity
- February 2010
