I recently discovered oil pastels and am being amazed every day at how versatile they are. While cleaning my desk this morning I found some blank ATCs (Artist trading cards, 2.5x3.5") and wondered if I could work small with such a bulky medium. Turns out, absolutely yes.
In late 2018, after some time not doing any artwork, I really wanted to get back into it. I fancied doing something different and invested in some soft pastels. This was my first go with them and it was a hell of a learning curve about how they adhere to the paper, and how they blend. I'm not really sure the pastels I was using were soft enough for the look I wanted, but I like how loose this one turned out.
Soft pastels on pastel mat. I got a set of pastels as a birthday present, so I had to try it. It's quite different from working with ink. I like the colors but I am searching for a better way do do the eyes and the horns.
The tables were covered in white paper. Crayons, pastels, and smooth sticks waited quietly. Then came Lucy’s glittery purse—her 8-year-old hands had filled it with stones to pass along, one by one, to the strangers around the table.
We traced them. Pushed them. Held them.
Then we let the colors lead:
-Red for emotion.
-Yellow for curiosity.
-Blue for memory.
Each color came with music, with story, with space.
At the Museum of Wisconsin Art, we made marks not for meaning but for presence.
Thank you to Ann Marie and MOWA for the invitation and trust. And thank you to the participants—some new friends, some old students—for showing up and making lines that listened before they spoke.
4 year old Henry engaged fully with thick applications of watercolor and oil pastels. He said it was a stormy sea with a small boat. This was at the onset of the pandemic, when we were all a bit uncertain and confined to our homes. I was reminded of an insight by Kierkegaard written in the early 1800s: “When the sailor is out on the sea and everything is changing around him, as the waves are continually being born and dying, he does not stare into the depths of these, since they vary. He looks up at the stars. And why? Because they are faithful – as they stand now, they stood for the patriarchs, and will stand for coming generations. By what means then does he conquer changing conditions? Through the eternal: By means of the eternal, one can conquer the future, because the eternal is the foundation of the future.”
Combination of traditional and digital art. I actually hand painted this on some very textured paper with oil pastels a while back, so to 'tidy and clean' it I had to employ digital means. The background was done with alcohol inks, the 'flow' of it I was particularly proud of :).
One of the scariest characters I've ever seen. The most frightening of the vampires from the movie "Fright Night" (1985). I had to draw her as a form of therapy. Thumbs-up for the art department on that movie! If she had had white eyes instead of the red eyes in the movie, I would've been irreparably damaged! :) (Pencil on paper, size A4).
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." - Martin Luther King Jr. #Just_a_try_at_softpastels
