Indholdsfortegnelse for July/August 2019 i The Pastel Journal

When I think about my earliest interactions with art, my thoughts travel immediately back to the captivating illustrations that grabbed my imagination in my favorite picture books. I recall, in particular, Ezra Jack Keats’ fantastic illustrations for the book, John Henry: An American Legend, a folktale that pits our hero and his hammer in a race against a steam-powered machine. Keats’ captivating paint-and-collage creations aren’t merely descriptive; they evoke moods and emotions that move readers beyond the page and the storytelling. These powerful images burned onto my 6-year-old brain and have stayed with me all these years. “Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.”—LEONARDO DA VINCI The celebrated landscape artist Skip Whitcomb talked to contributing writer and artist Aaron Schuerr about the power of…

English painter John Constable (1776–1837) once said, “That landscape painter who does not make his skies a very material part of his composition neglects to avail himself of one of his greatest aids.” What a brilliant reminder! The sky dictates all the light, or lack thereof, that falls on the landscape below. Even if your painting doesn’t include any visible sky at all, the landscape will give clues about what’s happening up above simply by the quality of light on the objects in your painting. Even the temperature of the light in your painting offers glimpses into the time or atmospheric qualities of the day. The sky presents us with myriad personalities: sunrise, foggy mornings, a noon without shadows, the yellowy gray before a storm, a perfect blue summer afternoon,…

Step 1: I started by sketching large shapes in vine charcoal. I mark the horizon first and try to pay attention to changes of direction in the sky. Step 2: Next, I laid down general values in vine charcoal. These act as a road map for laying down color values. Step 3: I established the dark midtones and some brights. I work the whole surface without finishing any one area. Step 4: I continue to place brights to see how to respond, and remember to include some transitional colors from darks to lights. Final: I fill in the brights and make finishing touches, trying to ensure there’s a variety of mark-making. “FOR ME, IT’S THE CLOUDS THAT MAKE SKY SCENES INTERESTING, REFLECTING THE COLORS OF THE SUN AND CREATING A…

Maxion likes to work on Canson Mi-Teintes pastel paper, typically moonstone or flannel gray. “These are warmer and cooler mid-value grays,” he says. “I work on either side of the paper depending on the effect I’m trying to achieve.” His palette includes Nupastel, Girault, Rembrandt, Schmincke, Unison, Great American, Mount Vision and Terry Ludwig pastels. He uses the harder sticks for the initial block-in to establish value and temperature patterns without filling too much of the tooth of the paper. “I also like to work with harder pastels in areas of reflected light and in value transitions of form,” he says, “because they create a weave with the softer pigments without depositing on top of them or mixing with them.” Maxion doesn’t use fixative—“I find that it darkens and flattens…

The French Pastel Society prize I won in 2012 was a pastel workshop with artist Sophie Amauger, in County Mayo, Ireland. It was an epiphany and completely changed my concept of what could be achieved in pastel. Sophie is an excellent teacher, and I learned a lot from her. When she saw me arrive with my box of Rembrandts, she thought that she didn’t have anything to teach me, but she soon realized that I didn’t know a great deal about pastel and had a lot to learn. And, of course, we didn’t work in the same way at all: She was using pastel card and soft pastels, none of which I had. When she demonstrated something, I couldn’t copy it because I didn’t have comparable material; for me, it…

Skip Whitcomb’s pastel, Ascension (at right), is a marked departure from the 19th-century idea of the sublime. You’ll find no level ground, no perch for the viewer, and no obvious path to the distant peak. This isn’t some idealized notion of alpine splendor—it’s the real deal. As a mountaineer, I imagine roping up to climb the granite cliffs. As an artist, I’m drawn in by the teardrops of light glinting off the crenulated rock facets, by subtle color shifts that heighten the sense of space, and by Whitcomb’s distinctive calligraphic mark-making. As a human, I find joy in the vertical pattern of dark conifers and bright tussocks of grass, a nexus of solitary life around which the composition radiates like a pinwheel—a reminder that, even in the harshest terrain, life…

Step 1: I begin on Canson Mi-Teintes paper cushioned with a stack of drawing paper that makes it more responsive to changes in pressure. I start with a vine charcoal drawing that introduces the rhythm and lyricism of the piece. It also gives me a road map for blocking in values, temperatures and color. I establish the gesture of the shapes and the theme of the piece. I observe that the movement of this painting follows the letter “Z” or a reverse “S,” and I’ll want to support and reinforce that movement as the painting develops. Step 2: I typically use a neutral-colored middle-value paper (around a 6 on a 10-step value scale). With a mid-toned paper, lights are lighter than the paper and darks are darker than the paper.…

Do you dread entering your studio each day because you just can’t face the disheveled pile of sketchbooks and the pastel sticks lying haphazardly on every surface? Are your reference photos stacked on top of your color wheels that are on top of your vine charcoal that you haven’t seen in six weeks? Do you risk a broken arm as you precariously step over boxes of magazines in order to reach your studio easel? Is your plein air easel perched against a chair that’s filled with sheets of paper and boxes of new pastels you just bought but have nowhere to store? The mere idea of facing clutter that has built up over the years can weigh you down and give you a good excuse to put off painting for…

SEE THE BIG PICTURE. Begin with simplified areas blocked in to establish a sense of the whole before picking at the details. Getting the “bones” right increases the chances that refinements will also be right. There’s time to sweat the small stuff later, especially with pastels. SEE LIKE A BABY. Turn off the naming and the identification of things. A baby operates without direct experience or context, so visual stimulation is simply perceived as colors, shapes, light and movement. Let your own eyes direct you like this. There’s value in this condition of “not knowing.” TAKE A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE. Look at your work in various ways: upside-down, from far away, propped on the mantel, in different lighting, etc. Place the piece where you’ll come upon it unexpectedly. This sudden view…

Among the painters of the Barbizon school—a group of 19th-century artists who settled and worked in the Forest of Fountainbleau outside Paris—none was more dedicated to the subject of peasant life than Jean-François Millet (French, 1814–1875). Like his friends Corot, Rousseau and Daubigny, Millet was a first-rate landscape painter, but he was unique. Other artists moved to the village of Barbizon as an alternative to city life, but for Millet, the French countryside was home. He was born and raised on a farm and identified with those who worked the land. Millet’s famous paintings—The Gleaners, The Sower, The Angelus— appear to our eyes to be sentimental idealizations. Yet in their time they were landmarks of realism. As described by Millet’s biographer, Alexandra R. Murphy, the cultural stratification of mid-19th century…

1. See and paint people as shapes. Identify and focus on what’s essential to expressing your perception of them. 2. Move around as you watch people. View them off center, from different perspectives and at different angles of view. 3. Pay attention to the angles. When drawing the figure, consider the angles of the head, shoulders and hips as they relate to one another and to the movement of the centerline of the torso. 4. Paint gestures, not body parts. The body adapts itself as it moves through space. Notice how each part affects everything else, in relationship to the overall gesture of the body. 5. Try out what you see. To help you understand the dynamic of a gesture, try mirroring it with your own body. 6. People aren’t…

The French island of Mont Saint-Michel, in the bay of the same name, is listed by UNESCO as a world heritage site and welcomes more than 3 million visitors annually. I had hoped to be included in that number, but in early June last year, fog and mist enveloped the bay, rendering its gravity-defying medieval Abbey completely invisible. I had arranged to meet French artist Catherine Hutter in her studio in Cancale, on the western edge of the bay, and had hoped to take in the abbey while there. At least the fog didn’t interfere with our interview. Hutter and her sculptor husband, Jean-Pierre Pichereau, share a customized house and studio featuring a narrow frontage high in the town. Inside the unassuming facade is an Aladdin’s Cave of paintings, drawings,…