To share with you something of the process of creating one of my artworks, I have created this montage of eight stages of A Handful of Salt. This is a pastel painting, using pastel pencils on Pastelmat paper. This allows for a lot of detail which is of course important to me, and as the pastel builds and blends on the page it becomes beautifully creamy.
Each new picture I draw brings with it new challenges which stretch me a little further as an artist. With A Handful of Salt the hands themselves were far from easy, but they were familiar territory. It was the salt and the blue sky in this piece that were technically most testing. In particular, keeping the sharp edges of the individual salt crystals and developing a consistent blue background with multiple layers of colour. This becomes a test of patience as I develop a methodology and methodically apply it across the page. Once I find my groove in the process it becomes somewhat meditative as the repetitive motions and sounds of the pencil on the page gradually build and create something greater than the sum of their part.
Once the full series of hands studies has been completed, I will make available limited edition prints and greetings cards of A Handful of Salt and others.
Thanks go to Rehahn Photography for his amazing image.
