Winter Maelstrom

Wow, this has been a winter/spring maelstrom, hasn't it? I hope wherever you are in lockdown, you are keeping safe! To all of you who are discovering your artistic talents, fabulous! I'm struggling to concentrate and find something I'd like to paint. This transitional time of year is tricky for me, I like gnarled branches and bare boughs and the thought of hitting the greens is boggling. Apart from counting sheets of toilet paper, I did get started on this, a wintery palette, broken branches and swirling cold water. 

We've got down low and are looking down into the pooling water below. 

Last week I had a lovely comment from a Facebook follower, also a pastel artist, she considers me to be her ''guru of light/dark'', I must admit that playing with chiaroscuro has always been my thing, I love artists like Caravaggio whose handling of rich darks make his figures vibrate with energy. 

In pastel painting, the laying down of the lights and darks is probably the most important part of the process, the mid tones come basically from alone. That is also why I prefer to work on a mid-tone surface, while marking in pales and darks the colour of the support shows me how the balance is going, obviously here at the start too much. 

Another interesting thing about darks, or more specifically black, that black isn’t just black. In my pastel selection I have blacks from at least 5 different brands and they certainly are not the same. My favourite is a black from Unison (which is unfortunately running out) and I like a brown black and green black from Sennelier. I'll try to do a little swatch just to show you what I mean ...... and after completing this painting I'm definitely going to go for a burst of colour and let the blacks rest! 

So off to count my loo paper! Keep safe.