We held a special event in our Afan Nedd Artists’ Group last
night. Professional artist Sue McDonagh (as seen on Portrait Artist of the
Year) gave a demonstration on using chalk pastels. Sue is a brilliant artist,
who paints in both oils and pastels. I love her pastel paintings of children by
the seaside, and last night she gave us a demonstration of how she uses chalk
pastels to build up one of these.
The danger of watching a demonstration by a professional is,
of course, that you end up comparing what you see appearing in front of you to
your own work, and getting depressed because you know that it’s nowhere near as
good, and you think it will never be this good. Alright, so it’s a mental
hurdle to get over. But thankfully this doesn’t bother me too much since I know
that in real terms I’m still a beginner. I may never get to where I’d like to
be as an artist, but what the hell – I’m really enjoying the journey.
What a good evening we were treated to. The closest thing I
can compare to what I saw is magic. Sue prefers working from life, but for
obvious reasons she was working from a photograph in the demo. Sue was using
special pastel paper or card which has a surface like very finely grained
sandpaper, and which was a mid-brown colour.
She’d already sketched out the basic figures in charcoal. I wondered
whether the charcoal would muddy the pastels when they were applied on top. Not
at all. It was amazing to watch how with some seemingly very simple stokes of
the pastels the figures appeared on the page. There was no one moment when it
suddenly all zinged into focus, but after about 15 – 20 minutes you could see
the figures had really emerged from the dark outline and the dark background.
It was spell binding really, and it kept getting better, and better, and
better.
It’s inspired me to have a go with chalk pastels myself. A
couple of decades ago I tried to make a couple of pictures using oil pastels to
copy a couple of pictures by Monet. As they say – results were disappointing. I
have a set of oil pastels, but no chalk pastels. I have had a little windfall
this week, with a pan and ink commission, so I put the proceeds into ordering a
set of chalk pastels and some special paper. If they arrive by Wednesday, then
I’m going to have a bash. I have some photos of my grandchildren, Ollie and
Amelia on the beach.
Tips from Sue
·
If you’re using a white piece of paper, then
you’re fighting against the white all the time you make the painting. It can
give your pictures a children’s colouring book appearance – which is fine if
that’s what you want, but is something you need to think about when you’re
choosing the paper/card that you want to work on.
·
Sketch the figures in charcoal first. If you
sketch in normal/graphite pencil, then you’re fighting against the pencil
marks.
·
Think carefully about the colours you want to
use, and especially whether you need to use warm or cool shades of the same
colours.
·
Work from patches of dark colours to patches of
progressively lighter ones
·
There’s no need to use white, black or grey. You
can use other colours to make shade and shadows. A light magnolia colour can
have the same effect as white.
·
Don’t blend or mix colours.. This will make them
murky or muddy. You can apply a soft pastel directly on top of another colour
·
Don’t try to rub out or erase if you make a
mistake. Brush the area lightly with a soft brush, which has the effect of
diffusing the area, and will remind you that you want to change it before you
finish.
·
If you’re painting figures on a beach, for
example, then when you make reflections in water, reflected colours tend
towards integration – that is warm colours become cooler, and cool colours
become warmer.
·
Don’t be too obsessive about covering the whole
surface of the painting with colour. Small patches where the colour of the
paper can just be made out can be something which makes your painting seem
fresh and have life.
·
Know when to stop. You can lose the energy and
vitality of the painting by overworking it.
I've made 2 attempts since Wednesday. Here's the first - an original based on my own photo of my grandson: -  |
| Ollie |
- and this second is my copy of part of one of Sue's most popular originals: -
 |
| Copy of Sue McDonagh roriginal |
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