A Cornucopia of Copper

A Cornucopia of Copper, finally got it finished as time is eaten away by Christmas mayhem! 

And, taaadaaa

A Cornucopia of Copper 

65cm x 50cm 

Pastel 

Now that the days are slipping into chilly greys and blues, isn’t it fabulous to see those warm hues reflected on the surface of the river. 

Frustrated as I usually am with the difficulty of putting soft pastel on soft and then trying hard over it my change in tactic here paid off. I let ''negative'' space form a lot of the branches leaving support free to draw individual leaves; this worked really well and gives a kind of nice Japanese print feel . 

This painting is a good example of using a limited palette (for me), the idea of limiting your palette gives paintings a cohesion but can be a bit lack lustre. As the idea here was to focus on  those Autumn coppers, golds and russets I felt it worked well, believe me if it hadn’t come together ''limited'' would have gone out the window or rather ''limited'' to whatever my pastels have to offer. Yes, I've also used black which is often said to be a no no.  I must admit I do try to stick to that rule, although I think it often applies to mixing black into colours to darken them or used for shadows, resulting in a kind of drab painting. Shadows for example are often made up of lots of shades (scrunch up your eyes and take a peek) and are seldom only one colour, they are usually broken up by flickers of other shades. Shadow in itself is not universal, it is dependent on geography, light, surface and time of day. My motto with black is if you are going to use it, then boldly not apologetically, slap it on, confront the viewer! 

In the words of Picasso ''Learn the rules like a pro and break them like an artist!''. Yes, it's black and yes I've used it and broken the rule. Did it hurt? Nope, is it effective? Well, I think so and at the end of the day, that’s all that really matters.