Strokes and Edges

October has been a hectic month, with November getting even a little crazier with lots going on in my schedule (all good stuff!), so this will be a short post. Just thought I'd share some demos I painted for a couple of private classes I held this week. Both were for experienced pastelists who wanted to work on some specific skills.

The demo at the top was based on a timed study. In our last session, I worked with this student on a minimal stroke exercise, and this week we worked from the same photo but gave ourselves a time limit of 30 minutes (after the underpainting was established) for an 8x10. I fined tuned my demo about another 10 minutes afterward. The objective was to start with a strong underpainting and use deliberate stokes sparingly without overworking.

reference photo for above demo

For the demo below, the primary topic was edges...hard, soft, disappearing. Over defining the subtle is often a stumbling block for many artists. Backing up from your work is one of the best ways to notice if you're over defining your edges, although many artists forget to do this. Edges often look soft up close but may actually be more defined that you think. Snapping a quick photo on your phone and viewing a shrunk down version is also a good way to check.

reference photo for above demo

Both demos were done from the student's photo.