Transcribing - Van Gogh’s Cornfield and Cypress Trees
I am working my way through Jackie Simmond’s ‘Pastel Workbook’ and one of the exercises is to copy Van Gogh’s Cornfield and Cypress Trees. It looked like it was easy enough, but I had a few challenges. One was trying to keep the strokes from touching too much. Another was that I used a paper with a strong ochre tint to it whereas I should have really used a blue/grey paper. Overall, once I got into the aspect of paisley strokes it is quite a fun style to paint with. Please leave your comments on areas of improvement! On a side note, I painted this outside (to enjoy the beautiful day) on my Plein Air Easel to test it out. I put the easel on my SLIK Able 300DX tripod and was impressed at the stability. I had the painting on a 12×12" hardboard and never had a problem with anything moving when applying the pastel. Below is Van Gogh’s painting to compare mine with.
YouTube
I have to say I was surprised by the amount of art related instructional videos on You Tube. Specifically pastels.
So far the best demonstrations are completed by EclecticAsylum. Here is a sample of his work.
Under Padding
While walking through London Drugs I came across a product called Easy Liner Solid, which is a solid non-slip closed cell foam shelf liner. It is about 1/16 thick and spongy but firm.
I picked a roll up and am using it behind my paintings now. Being beneath the paper it gives a very good cushion when painting, it holds masking tape well and doesn’t seem to tear when tape is removed.
I did use contact cement to glue it down to my backing board so there is no way it will slip.
If you see it you may want to pick a roll up and try it.
Apples
Two sketches of apples. The first one I focused more on the apple and it shows. Although the background colour compliments the apple well, it is unfinished and lacking definition.
The second sketch I started with the background, knowing that if I didn’t I would focus on the apples too much. There is a sense of harmony between the background and the apples, however there is lack of definition in the apples.
Please post your comments if you have any.
New Additions
I have added two new items to my repertoire.
A new easel and a new set of 120 Rembrandt pastels.
The easel is a Windsor and Newton H-frame Shannon easel and I am enjoying it as it is easily adjustable and is very sturdy. What I like about the easel the most is the ratcheted vertical adjustment. Very quick and very simple to adjust.
The Rembrandt set is great. With the 120 set, 60 are full sticks and 60 are half sticks. What would have been even better would be to get a 180 piece set of all half sticks for the same price. Then I could really try out more colours without spending a lot of money. Plus it would save me the time of actually breaking all the full sticks in half for my pastel box. Yes, I am one of those that works in half sticks and have no problem breaking my pastels into as many little pieces as I need to. :)