robes Archives

To share with you something of the process of creating one of my artworks, I have created this montage of six stages of A Handful of Faith. 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.

This artwork speaks to me of universiality, ritual and of course faith. We each have many rituals in our day to day lives, most of which we may not be aware of till circumstances change and we then become aware of all the ways we usually like to do things. The rituals associated with prayer can be specific to religions, or specific to individuals, and they can bring as much comfort as the words themselves.

I have no doubt that these hands have held these beads countless times, and that the movements are so embedded in the memory of the muscles that they have taken on a life of their own. There is a beauty in that familiarity, and in the faith of the person we observe. Their anonymity makes it easy for us to identify with them, perhaps thinking of ourselves, our grandparents, people we may have met or of the greater hands of a faith that holds us.

Once the full series of hands studies has been completed, I will make available limited edition prints and greetings cards of A Handful of Faith, A Handful of Lotus Seeds, A Handful of Salt, A Handful of Chillies and the others.

Thanks go to Réhahn Photography for his amazing image.

As the summer starts to give way to autumn, I have found that the gradually darker evenings give rise to a little more drawing time. In this transitional time A Handful of Faith has been created. Like all of the hands studies in this series, A Handful of Faith has been created in pastel on Pastelmat.

A Handful of Faith is the fourth study in this series, and it gave rise to it’s own particular challenges. The most pronounced of these for me was the texture of the skin of these hands. I would have thought that by now I would have enough experience in drawing wrinkles and lines, however I was surprised by how tricky I found these.

The texture is different, finer somehow that the hands I am more familiar with drawing, and the colours seemed to evade me for some time. To help myself as I learned what I needed to do I chose to focus my energies on one hand first, then when that was complete I would take those skills to the other. I am often not so methodical in my approach, tending to flit around the page more, but this time being more measured really helped.

I post progress pictures of my artworks on my social media pages, and one comment in particular caught my eye. ‘It’s looking good….already! Love the topic, I used to love watching, mainly the men, with their “worry beads” many years ago when we lived in Greece for about a year. Always fascinated me. So I’m really looking forward to seeing this piece unfurl before our eyes.’ I love how this artwork in it’s very early stage was already transporting a viewer to another time and place, evoking memories of experiences she had had, and bringing a smile as she reminisced about the people she knew thousands of miles away.

For me A Handful of Faith brings with it a sense of calm, meditation and connection. A universal experience of communing with something larger that us; be it through religion, nature, love or a moment of quiet reflection.

Once the full series of hands studies has been completed, I will make available limited edition prints and greetings cards of A Handful of Faith and others.

Pre-orders are being taken now for prints of A Handful of Chillies, A Handful of Salt, A Handful of Lotus Seeds and A Handful of Faith. Please get in touch to order yours.

Thanks go to Rehahn Photography for his amazing reference image.