A Cotswold (Pastel) Pastoral (Say that five times real fast!)

Afternoon on the Wold
Pastel
16x11"

The weekend weather in North Carolina hasn't been so great for the last month. My plans to get out for some on location sketching and photo taking keeps getting bumped by gray skies and rain. Now they're calling for rain again this weekend.

So, I've been having to work from old photographs -- in this case, one that my wife Sarah took a couple of years ago on her way from Norwich to Cheltenham, when she was visiting friends and family in the U.K. It was late afternoon, and she was approaching Cheltenham (in the Cotswolds region of England, a lovely place famous for, among other things, its yellowish stone), when she saw this view and stopped to capture it.

I think this is the third painting in a row that I've attempted to represent stone. I also think I'm getting better at doing trees and foilage. But what I most like, surprisingly, are the little sprigs of weeds sticking up here and there on the hillside. It's amazing what a few squiggles and dabs of pigment can suggest.

The sheep were fun... though trying to work on such a small, relatively precise figures using semi-bulky pieces of broken pastel, was at times nerve-wracking. As relaxing and as meditative as pastel painting can be, one frequently feels as though one hovers on the edge of disaster!

But, yeah... I think I'm finally starting to "get" this pastel thing, somewhat. What do you think?

Oh, by the way, I took a very big step last weekend, and attended my first meeting of the Pastel Society of North Carolina. For next month's meeting, I think I'll take something along for critique!

You do have put it out there eventually, don'tcha?

Copyright ©2008 by Rick Koobs





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