Pastel Painting Atelier — Ellen Eagle

A super good book with Ellen taking us through everything she knows about art and her own approach to working on a artwork, from conception to completetion.

I would consider this book a must read for pastelists, but also i would think that a lot of artists of other mediums would also really enjoy it and get a few take-aways.

It’s also full of some wonderful art works, both by Ellen and others that she has something to point out about.   I would rate it very highly as just a book to look at the pictures if that’s also your thing, as there are a lot of wonderful pictures to browse.

#art #painting #pastels #elleneagles

30 Minute Pastel #1


20 x 15 cm.   Using various hard pastels and pastel pencils on Winsor and Newton Tints grey pastel paper.

This was a painting of a painting from the book 30 Minute Pastels by Margaret Evans.

I really don’t like this paper, it was just soooo hard to get the pastel pencils to do anything with it and i ended up breaking a few leads pressing too hard just trying to make a mark.   But it’s good to try various supports, maybe it’ll work better with soft pastels.

All in all i’m quite happy with how it turned out, even if it did take me quite a lot longer than 30 minutes.

Another painting for my living room wall though.

#5t4n5 #art #painting #pastels

Arghhhh!!!

I found some lessons on Conté à Paris’ website and decided to have a play.

Materials:   Conté à Paris Black B crayon, Pierre Noire H and Blanc 630 on Pink Pig Sketch Book 150gsm white mixed media cartridge.

Thoughts:   The “Subtractive Drawing” lesson says to use a black pastel pencil to make the paper grey, i didn’t have one so i used the Black B crayon instead.   Need to try this same technique with a black or grey pastel instead and see what the difference is like.

I used the picture from the “Expressive Self Portrait” lesson, which some may think is defeating the object, but my mission wasn’t to do the self portrait lesson, it was to find a challenge that i could apply the subtractive drawing method to and i liked that picture.

Learned:   That i can do a reasonable copy of something.   How to use different erasers for drawing light in.

And:   I definitely plan no coming back to this technique in the future and have some more playtime with it.   It’s a fun way to draw.

In the meanwhile i have another picture on the go which i need to get finished.

#5t4n5 #art #pastels #painting