In January, artist and Tuesday morning class tutor, Claire Cross, gave a live demo on creating an atmospheric picture in pastels on a dark acrylic background.
Claire started by explaining her general rules for this type of picture. She prefers using Unison pastels for their creamy texture and coverage. She has assembled many shades of green over the years and uses most of them to get variety. She prefers working on card or non textured paper, applying black acrylic to get a matt finish. The non-textured paper doesn’t trap pastel dust that way, and makes coverage easier.
She uses Frisk pastel fixative to fix the medium, but even then, says you have to be careful with handling and framing. She keeps a damp cloth to hand, to wipe her fingers regularly and prevent smudging. She also prevents smudging by working top down and left to right (as she is right-handed).
She avoids using graphite pencil to draw with, as this is difficult to cover and leaves a shine, instead using charcoal pencil sparingly for key outlines. She works closely from a source photo, studying each section in turn, before making marks.
She started top left and right, putting in darker and lighter green for leaf shapes. Her aim was to create the notion of leaves, rather than drawing each in. She worked quickly, adding in darks and lights. She moved to the brick wall and archway, using two or three browns and terracottas, and adding fine lines in a lighter colour for the mortar lines. She was careful only to suggest these, rather than drawing them all in. She also pointed out it was important to join up the vertical and horizontal intersects, where you did show them, to add to the realism.
She worked out the vanishing point of the distant horizon (behind the wall) by using an extra long ruler and, from this, was able to get the correct angles for the mortar lines on the side of the archway. She was careful to let the black show through, to emphasise the shadows.
Moving to the garden beyond the arch, she pointed out that the black surface works against you here and needs full coverage with the greens and lavenders she used to show the lawn and flower beds. She worked on the darker leaves in shadows of the arch, lifting excess dust with Bluetack and smudging some areas gently with a fingertip, to blend.
She then worked on the lower half of the picture, adding in a step in shadow, the shade from the step and an area of sunlight, before finishing with dotted white/light green patches to show the sunlight hitting leaves.
Claire stood back to view the picture and added in a few more lights and voila, a very atmospheric result had emerged – as if by magic – from the black!
Above is shown a part stage photo, plus the finished result , plus a few other images from previous works, below.
Claire says: “I am always inspired by nature and enjoy portraying landscapes in this unusual way, using the background colour to inform the rest of the picture.”
Claire’s work can be seen at: https://www.instagram.com/giantmousie/
