Sennelier Extra Soft pastels and Canson paper – first impressions.

Unboxing …

Due to the nature of the extra soft Sennelier pastels, they were very finicky and tempermental, not robust like Rembrandt or the Art Spectrum brands that I use most of the time.  HOWEVER, the colour is completely unrivalled – it is pure pigment and applied to underpaintings using other soft pastels, or on top of a wash, the colours are luminous in colour strength, the pigment also adheres to the grooves or tooth of the paper and doesn’t dust off as readily as other soft pastels.

I had to do a lot more work with colour contrasts and layers to get the Rembrandt up to the same sparkling colour of the Sennelier apple subject above.  Sennelier only required a few dashes and swipes and there you had a perfect juicy apple.

I was rather underwhelmed by the Canson paper- I’d heard so much about it and was expecting a totally new experience.  However, I found it difficult to get the effects I wanted, so reverted back to my Daler Rowney Ingres paper – this sketch was to see how much working up I could do with the Sennelier soft pastels … I used a lot of other pastels to get to the greens I needed and realised fairly early on that I should have done a complimentary underwash of red or orange to get the greens to lift up and ‘sing’.

Eventually I managed to salvage a half decent study of the ancient oak tree in the field next to our house :

“The Ancient Oak at harvest”

Sennelier extra soft pastels, Rembrandt and Art Spectrum soft pastels on Daler Rowney acid free caramel coloured Ingres paper.

Painting size is approx.:  35cm x 25xm

 

Art Spectrum Soft Pastels

I am so pleased, Jackson’s Art Supplies have published the post on their dedicated blog featuring my review of Art Spectrum soft pastels.   Check it out here

If you enjoyed the article, I’d appreciate it if you would give it a ‘like’ or  ‘share’ it with your friends on Facebook or wherever else you join up with friends and family on the interwebs.

 

 

New soft pastel work

I don’t know about you but I’m getting a bit sick and tired of grey skies.  Here in South Norfolk we have the most gorgeous spring and summer colours – I’m dying to see powder blue skies,  brilliant greens, oil seed flowering in the fields and daffodils … all the happy colours that make your heart sing.   So this is a bit of a wishful whimsy …

Soft pastels on paper

‘Summer Field’

Art Spectrum soft pastels on Daler Rowney acide free dark brown Ingres coloured paper. Actual size of painting is about 30cm x 20cm

The paper size is  16″ x 12″ or 406mm x 305mm

Photo number two – to show stroke texture and third photo to show background colour of paper.

New soft pastel work

“Trees Impression”

16″ x 12″ or 406mm x 305mm

Soft pastels and inks on Daler Rowney acid free Ingres coloured paper; 98lb or 160g/m2

 

New soft pastels

‘Trees and grasses’

16″ x 12″ or 406mm x 305mm

Soft pastels (Rembrandt, Reeves, Faber-Castell) on Daler Rowney acid free Ingres coloured paper; 98lb or 160g/m2

 

‘Seascape and sunglow’

16″ x 12″ or 406mm x 305mm

Liquid acrylic Inks ; Soft pastels (Rembrandt, Reeves, Faber-Castell) on Daler Rowney acid free Ingres coloured paper; 98lb or 160g/m2

New mixed media abstract work

“Reef”

14″ x 10″ (A3) unframed 297mm x 420mm

Liquid acrylics (inks), Rembrandt soft pastels, Pebeo gold effect foil on 140lb acrylic paper (Daler Rowney system 3)

New soft pastel work

“Woodland Light”

14 ¼” x 10 ¼”  Soft pastels on paper

 

Footnote:    I got hold of this with the Galeria gloss medium – the idea was to see if this medium would be compatible and protect the pastels better than a fixative spray.   What seems to have happened is the tones have darkened – the painting is still interesting, I think and perhaps more atmospheric.  I have matted and mounted it behind cellophane – photo just to show difference in tonality.

Small soft pastel paintings

A few more soft pastel paintings … I’m now using Rembrandt materials, although some of these were done with the other pastels I already had.

    This is sold

These are each about 11″ x 10″

Grounds … and difference each one makes to finished pastel paintings.

Yep, changed the theme is … not sure if people like this design, please let me know if you think it’s irritating and I’ll revert back to the old theme!

I did a painting with these chalky soft pastels that I received over Christmas of a Norfolk windmill with storm clouds looming in the background – I thought the dark sky would make for an interesting contrast with the colours of the buildings, bathed in sunlight.   However, I just could not get the intensity of the background right – I was using a watercolour paper and even though this was a very expensive ground, it was completely incorrect for this style of picture.

Then today I did another painting (larger than the windmill one) of a landscape on precoloured (sand/khaki) roughly textured very cheap paper and the results were noticeably different.  I’m pleased with the way this one turned out, as the reference photo I used was from a very old book I have Scottish landscapes that are now mostly gone to urbanisation and the photo was ‘green’ and very dull.  This one is 14″ x 10″ …

I should get my new materials, paper etc. next week and am really looking forward to trying it all out.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Footnote:

Due to the fact that the windmill pastel painting was done on watercolour paper, I discovered that by using water, I was able to get a much darker effect with the background.

I adjusted the other painting (now framed, ‘scuse crap photo) , took out the boats in the right hand mid section of the loch and change the sky (It was very naive in the first attempt).

Various … oil and soft pastel experiments

‘Oil Poppies’

Approx. 12″ x 8″

Underpainting of alcohol inks, added area of gold metal effect medium, then overpainted with oils (not artist quality) on canvas board.

I didn’t have any linseed oil or other mediums, as well as cleaning solvents, so was hesitant to try out these oils but then discovered that I could use Baby oil to dilute the paint and to clean the brushes, also much better on the skin!  So far the baby oil doesn’t appear to have created any dull patches – the paint is still wet, I expect it will only be dry and fully cured in a month’s time.   The oils and canvas board came with the set I describe below.

Soft pastel studies – my first attempts using this medium:

‘Dartmoor landscape’ from reference photo in a book.

Approx. 11″ x 7″

Soft pastels (not artist quality) on cheap scrapbooking type project paper (blue).

‘Orange landscape’

Approx. 5½” x 7″

Soft pastels (not artist quality) on cheap scrapbooking type project paper (blue).

Footnote:

I was given a compact artist’s kit comprising oils, acrylics and watercolour materials, plus palette and sample canvas boards, sketching pads, brushes, painting knives etc. etc. for a Christmas present.   These sample paintings are the results of playing about with the stuff in the kit.

I have never used soft pastels (chalk pastels) before and am finding them really fun to work with.  I enjoy the way I can layer over the colours and blend to get quite interesting effects.  This has inspired me to try and purchase better quality soft pastels as soon as I can, as well as some good quality paper – I’d like to turn out more impressive work in the future – so watch this space!

I hope everyone who visits this page had a lovely Christmas and everything of the very best fo 2017 – let’s hope it’s a positive year for all of us!