There is a farmer not too far from my house growing zinnias! You can pick your own at $4 for a dozen! So beautiful, so I just had to pick a couple of dozen. I brought them back to my studio to study and make drawings.I just finished participating in PASTEL LIVE so I decided to try my hand at my pastels again. Debora Stewart gave an interesting demo using acrylic paint, charcoal and pastels painting flowers in an abstract way. So, with my zinnias as inspiration, I tried my hand at it. What fun!! Watch my progress below.
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| So pretty! |
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| Blind Contour drawings of the flowers. |
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| Using Golden Fluid Acrylics, I created some washes on matboard. |
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| Working from my drawings, I used charcoal and created a composition. Then I brushed a coat of clear gesso on top of everything. This will darken the charcoal and set the ground for the pastels. |
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| Making drawings from the flowers |
I thought I would try a new twist with Debora's technique. I love gelli plate printing and using stencils as well as PanPastels. So I thought why not combine the two. I added a layer of thin blue PanPastel to the background around the flowers. Then using one of Elizabeth St. Hilaire's wonderful stencils, I pounced pastel into the background before I started working the flowers.
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| Adding blues to the background |
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| Pouncing the PanPastel through the stencil |
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| Makes an interesting effect in the background. |
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After working the flowers.
Now deciding if I am finished with it. |
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| Close up. |
What do you think? Am I finished? Did I create a new technique?Let me know what you think via my website:
RhettsStudio.com
