Discoveries!

It’s been six months since my last blog post, and the time has flown by since starting my Professional Development journey last September. I’ve discovered a lot over this time, not only with materials and techniques, but also about myself.

Pastels - I wasn’t a big fan of them, as they’re a bit messy and my cat is forever walking in the pastel dust! So, despite having a good selection of colours, I’ve not been keen to use them in my mixed media work. However, this all changed after a field trip to Unison Colour in Northumberland with my fellow artists from Paintbox Art School.

The old Rectory where the pastels are produced is set in beautiful gardens, in the middle of nowhere! The out-buildings which house the making of the pastels are just as lovely, with aged beams, creaking floorboards and stone walls stained with vibrant pigment dust. It’s a hive of activity inside, from mixing the pigments to rolling and drying the pastels. They’re great buildings to be in, with a really calm environment despite all the productivity.

The pigments are stored in the huge drums that they arrive in, but there’s also evidence on the old wooden shelves of how it used to arrive, in gorgeous glass jars with big glass stoppers. The large sheets of papers the pastels are dried on are reused in layers under the drying pastels. The thick wads of paper, patterned from the pastels, are hanging under the wooden tables - I just kept thinking what wonderful collage papers they would make!

I could have easily stayed all day looking in wonder at this magical place and the beautiful rows and rows of pastels. So, the result of this visit is, that I’ve changed my view of pastels, and I’ve started to use them in my recent work. I’m enjoying how versatile they are, and how well they blend with oil pastels and acrylics.

From the pastels came my next discovery - pots of pigment powder. It’s so expensive so I just bought a teeny pot of orange to try. My plan was to sprinkle it amongst my different mediums to give a splattered look. It worked beautifully, but the difficult part was keeping it where it fell on the surface. I was working with my panels flat, but even when I moved them slightly the pigment shifted about! Giving the pigment a spray of pastel fixative seemed to hold it well, and I haven’t varnished over it yet, but think that a spray varnish will be the best solution. I’m pleased with the results and I’ll definitely use it again in small areas.

My final discovery, and surprise, is how much I’m enjoying my move to completely abstracting the landscape rather than semi-abstracting. I’ve always worked quite loosely, and always had a defined horizon, but I was keen to move away from this and not be tied to a horizon. It was quite difficult at the start not to include one, but I persevered and broke through the barrier! Collage helped with this a lot, and by applying the pieces intuitively the horizon was lost.

I really love the juxtaposition and exaggeration of the abstract shapes and textures. However, I felt a bit restricted on my usual small panels and felt I needed to go larger. So, another discovery, I love the large panels that I’ve shied away from in the past. It’s funny how these things just happen as a natural progression without any planning.

I’m sure there will be more unearthing of things that I like, or don’t like, for example the gelli-plate. I didn’t get on with it at all (it annoyed me for some bizarre reason!). I didn’t persevere with it and so gave it away!