After some inspiration from a chance encounter from pastel artist Katharine Laird, and a second chance of buying a starter set of pastels a couple of days ago but not using them yet, I felt inspired to try a pastel picture. Katharine is one of only 100 artists to get a picture into the Lowry's 'One Love' exhibition and I am another, it's quite amazing really. I tried to copy a Lempicka picture but only really managed an eye and started to get the surrounding bits a bit wrong, so I changed my plan, and added some other bits of Tamara to a themed landscape. Pastels are similar to oil painting to use. I found that laying on white as a base then adding a touch of colour on top, then blending was a good way to lighten (the pre-raphaelites painted in that way). The biggest downside for me was my lack of a nice coloured black, a blue-black and red-black might stop the washed-out look that has given 'pastel colours' their name.
