Pastel art course

Pastel art course

day two.

By the second morning of an art course the atmosphere is usually more relaxed, the first day nerves have passed and people have begun to get to know each other. The weather wasn’t good enough to go outside and work on landscape, but I had printed out photos of the model and the group was keen to get back to their pastels.

The rain bought one good thing though; Cosette arrived with beautiful ceps to cook for lunch and with Alain’s help we enjoyed a wonderful omelette.

I think that it’s imperative when working up pictures from photos to keep the original energy and the emotion that went into the life study and not to start slavishly copying the photo.

The class worked with energy and some of them managed to work up two small pastels during the morning.

In the afternoon Alain agreed to pose for a portrait and he turned out to be an excellent model. First I gave a demonstration. I was working on a sheet of canson mi-tiente paper. I lay down the first lines in light charcoal for the central axis of his head, with  horizontal guide lines for the eyes, mouth and the bottom of the nose. I tend to work from the inside towards the outside of the head when I am drawing a portrait. I start fairly quickly blocking in areas of tone with the pastels, usually leaving the eyes until later on when I have understood the construction of the head.

squint-to-simplify-the-subject

The class made a start on their portraits of Alain. He was to pose again later in the week…..