Adventures in Pastel Painting

 Pastel #2; Katy on Tasha Tudor Day

Pastel #1; Study in Red

 Pastel #3; Grip

Pastel #4; Clay

It's been ages since I blogged.  I honestly can't remember what all happened in what order last year.  We had a lot of really not very nice things happen whilst I was attempting to make art and we are still trying to recover time lost half-way through this year. 

Nevertheless.  I hope to catch you up-to-date within the next week or two. 

So mid-last-year, I was invited to attend a workshop/art session on Wednesday nights at a local art gallery.  I wasn't feeling very inspired at the time due to the factors written above, so rather than bringing my watercolours, I brought along a very nice set of pastels I had bought years ago and had always been too afraid to actually use. 

My dear friend Jeanette Giroud, a skilled artist, helped me with my first attempt.  That was the little sketch of the red-headed boy with the red chicken Study in Red.  Obviously I had no idea what I was doing but I found the pastels extremely easy and intuitive to use and almost even relaxing.  Not being one of those people who finds art-making in the least bit soothing, this was quite a novelty to me, and the following week I did the little portrait of Katy, which I was very pleased with.  Then there was an art exhibition at Ellis House shortly after that, for which I did the larger painting, Grip, and also the painting Clay, which never made it to the exhibition at all due to it having sold before the exhibition started.

I have done one other pastel painting since then but I will save that for a future post. 

I will try to be better about posting!  It is hard to make art a priority, and I even tried to give it up altogether this year because my schedule is so tight with working, volunteering, and studying.  But I found I wasn't happy at all giving it up, and so I've decided to do the complete opposite and prioritize it instead.   I never know what to do with myself. :)