The WELCOME HOME: Boxed Set of 60 SCHMINCKE EXTRA-SOFT PASTELS

5/4/2019

Painting the Warby Hut

I chose to work in a small scale of A4 size on a 300 gram textured 100% cotton acid free watercolour paper using flow formula acrylic paint to create a simple copy from the photograph - view side image. The paint brands I used were Maimari a very high quality Italian brand. I also have a few other brands of acrylic paint in my kit, chosen for convenience, as they are commonly available.

This shows the small amount of flow formula paints I have placed in my wet palette, my brush box, box of flow formula paint and the simple block in under painting copy from the photo.

Painting the Warby Hut: Stage Three
Refining the Artwork in Pastels

I prefer impressionist-style oil paintings for my own family portraits, but understood that my many portrait commissioning clients preferred the subtly and detail I achieved with pastel pencils For realism in portraiture the pastel pencil medium is ideal. Please tone, I am striving to pass on my knowledge in art to others, thee days, and that doesn't allow me the time to paint portrait commissions.

For those who have not begun working in pastels, my advice is DO NOT DO IT, or, if you do, be extremely careful not to inhale dust—easier said than achieved. Beware, pigmented dust is poisoning, and the binder, being a fine fine talc, and closely related to asbestos, is also hazardous. dust and pigments.

Pastels should only be worked with if you have a dust extractor in the area where you are working and a safe disposal system for the dust. Definitely, don't work with pastel medium in a home environment where you have children breathing the pastel dust contaminated air. If you go to an art workshop and other artists are using pastels or dusty mediums is an unwise manner, creating dust on their paintings and blowing that off into the air, stand up and walk out, then phone the organizers and tell them why.

There is no place for shyness or fear of making a fuss when it comes to health and safety. Our stressing that artists should work safely will save lives. Yes, all those 'self-taught' artists with a fool for a teacher are frequently putting their lives at risk. You don't use any art material before learning all that you can about what you are working with.

With beautiful soft artist quality pastels and loving the texture of the paper, I lightly worked over the acrylic underpainting, lightening the sky so it contrasted with the mountain. Show in the side image, I am creating a haze over the mountain.
I also took this softening with the pale ultramarine blue into the tree line behind the hut, creating an aerial perspective appearance of greater distance and at the same time reducing the overall appearance of green as I wanted to create the effect of softer lighting of early morning or late afternoon, much as I had viewed this scene myself.

I have nine trays of pastels with three trays placed in each of three boxes. One box is for my cool colours of blue and blue-green or blue-violet. I have a yellow to yellow-orange, yellow-green and white box. Then a red to red-violet and orange box. Then within these boxes, I have divided my trays into the dark, the medium tones and the light tones. I find this system easy and efficient to work with and pack for travel.

Close up detail of part of the painting.

This is the time in my life for me to share the skills I learned with those who now have the time to pursue painting as a career or lifetime skilled hobby.

I use a dark orange gold pastel for small areas on the mountain, the trees, and the ground, especially in the foreground and the corners as I wanted to darken these to keep the eye within the work. I have used this as accents on the building and the rough texture of the paper helped me achieve the effect of the colour only on a few high points, not a solid cover.

Final Pastel - Mixed Medium Artwork by Ryn Shell

Did you know that one pan pastel is usually the equivalent in covering power to five regular pastels?

Pan Pastels not as dusty to work with as most stick soft pastels. There is usually less wastage, unless you learn how to create home made pastels from the pastel dust from your stick pastels. Some artists consider there is less mess and that they are more economical to work with than stick pastels. I feel they are more time consuming to work with, and will stay with the stick pastels that I'm familiar with.

Pan Pastels, as with stick pastels are they certainly versatile, and they require no preparation – pull them out and you’re good to go without need for any brushes or palettes.

Now, let's have fun while we learn.
Happy Creativity.
Cheers, Ryn.

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