Time to Say Goodbye !

Yes, last week it was time to say goodbye to one of my pastel paintings, "A Touch of Autumn", has gone off to a new home. I'm grateful to the new owner for sending me this photo taken when he collected the painting from the framer!  

As most of my paintings were sold by galleries, I seldom get the chance to see a pastel painting framed up., so I'm very proud of how gorgeous it looks. 

Seeing a framed work also got me thinking about the presentation of pastel paintings as many of them are now being framed without passepartout or mat, giving the completed work more that oil painting feel. Many buyers believe that pastel paintings are too "fragile" to stand the test of time, thinking they are "chalk" which is infact not the case. Good quality pastels are pure pigment with a minimum of binder and therefore will not yellow with age or crack as oils do, they do however need to go behind glass! Here museum's glass is a good tip if you want to keep colour and definition (pricey however), normal anti-glare glass tends to give a kind of fuzzy look and plain picture glass causes glare. As for longevity, take a peek at the works of Liotard und Degas, Liotard's blue still zings after over 200 years and Degas ballerinas look as fresh as when he painted them! 

A bone of contention is whether the pastels should be placed directly behind glass, French framers have been doing this for donks, sooo the proof of the pudding is in the framing I'd say, I've got two large frames in my living room and would like some new piccys ........... an experiment is on the cards! 

Having written about my problems with green, I'm having a sea green thing going on interiorwise, so the paintings will be waves a little like Calypso's Calling in Saturday's post and I'm going to bang the paintings directly behind (the unfortunately not glare-free) glass. Here's the start ........ !