Illusion_4
‘Without patience a sailor I would never be’. I was planning to make series of paintings since long on various subjects. Small but beguiling. That’s how I ended up with the idea of creating landscapes of barques and this is one of those. The painting is simple. I made it on A4 sheet with dry pastel. Yes, the one messiest pastel as it tends to destroy everything it touches. Why? Powder dust! But I feel it blends better than oil pastel and these are fun to work with. So for colouring medium you can either go for pastel papers or the regular ones. My preference is the regular paper due to its flawless blending on smoother surface. So to start with, pick up any pigment and use the sides of the pastels to fill the parts, you can colour it roughly with minimal pressure then it becomes easy to blend. Likewise pick your next shade, scratch it on and blend. Make sure you keep your fingers clean; alternatively you can use paper or napkins. Now if you are thinking how many layers to use, well that’s completely up to you, the way you want the painting to present. Be careful while using black colour as it is very intense and much difficult to take out once you put in, so as I always say use the black at the end. Again the layers, colours, and blending is always the artists choice. Here in this painting I used black as acrylic to paint the boats when I was done with the background. But not before fixing the colours. POWDER DUST, remember? So you need to spray fixative on your picture from a safe distance else the colours will fall off no matter what and it will never settle without this medium. I just spray once each time I use dry pastels to allow the pigment glue to the surface. And if you ask me my favourite brands, I would always love to go for Sennelier dry pastels and Daler-Rowney prefix colourless fixative; Umm expensive? A big YESS! But cut back your deals another day and leave an honest sailor in an ocean of colours and just FORGET THE COST.