This was some extra work in pastels. From Bill Creevy’s book on pastel drawing, I had taken ideas for mark-making and tried out some basic techniques, like dusting or colouring in layers.
Then I wanted to make an attempt with the linear approach to pastel drawing, as explained in the book. The basic idea is to begin with a line drawing, then subsequently add more and more colour to create volume and texture. Creevy distinguishes this from the massive approach, which begins with broadly coloured areas and subsequent modeling of detail, and the atmospheric approach, which builds up a picture from increasingly dense hatching.
Page 1: outline sketch and areas of colour
I began my drawing with a sketch, outlining the basic forms and colours using line. But I did not continue with he linear approach, probably because of the complexity of flowers and their leaves. I wasn’t able to focus my attention towards drawing single leaves, stems or flower details. Rather I thought I should indicate the broad areas of colour – green in the middle for the leaves, the blue vase, and yellow and red for the flowers.
I also realized that I couldn’t leave the background empty – The flowers were positioned against a white wall and a white door, but the white supporting paper’s would not work. I decided to try out shades of pale yellow, medium brown and light grey for the background.
Page 2: adding flower details and darker areas
The drawing was very light and I found it needed depth and shadings. I used darker tones and black for this. I worked on the flowers by making sharp lines of red and dissolved these with a swag, then added yellow.
Page 3: deepening colours
I reworked the background, the vase and the leaves with soft tissue paper. At this stage I was very dissatisfied with the drawing – it’s lack of definition and I found it was not at all able to capture the beauty and interest of the roses. I thought about stopping at this point and accepting failure, but then decided to continue and see if I could improve the overall impression.
Page 4: contours for the green leaves
I found the lack of shape and detail of the leaves very disturbing and therefore decided to work out some prominent leaves. I used black, because green contours did not give me enough contrast to recognize the leaves’ shapes. A positive turning point was when I applied a technique of figure/ground differentiation: At the spot where I was working I analysed whether I saw a light leaf on a dark background, or whether the leaf was darker than its background. Correspondingly, I blended the black contour line either into the background or into the leave. The figure/ground decision could change many times over the area of a single leaf, and I found that applying this technique very much improved the overall impression.
I also reworked the vase and the background several times, applying layers of colour one over the other.
Page 5: The final drawing
Then I gave a final touch to the vase to get a bit of purple into its blue colour, and emphasized the reflections on its shiny surface.
I’m not sure about this drawing. The flowers are a difficult subjects, there were so many of them, and I didn’t want to draw every little detail to do something photorealistic. So I had to resolve the question which details to include, what would be necessary to make the drawing correspond to the caracteristics of the roses and also to capture their beauty. I don’t know whether I have succeeded. But I think it improved from the stage where I thought it failed.
Ideas for future improvement
I think I should invest more time into the composition, even when I’m doing “only a study”. The background for the drawing wasn’t particularly attractive and rather disturbed the composition than supporting it.
Maybe I should also begin with a pencil drawing, to get to know my subject better before attempting to draw it in colour.
Another unresolved issue is whether my drawings are “too intense”. I like them, but I hesitate to hang them on the wall because they attract so much attention. I wonder whether a less intense way of colouring wouldn’t make them “quieter” and “better company”. Not sure about this.
Sources
Bill Creevy (1991) The Pastel book, Watson-Guptill Publications, New York