I have a love/hate relationship with soft pastels.  Some years ago when I was new at this art business I bought myself a set of Sennelier soft pastels which are one of the best brands.  What could go wrong?  Well everything actually and I ended up with a very expensive pastel covering of the floor.  You see I have big hands and I just didn’t understand how lightly you had to use the pastels before they would crumble.  Disaster. This somewhat put me off soft pastels.

I didn’t seem to have the same problems with oil pastels which seemed to be able to deal with my heavy handedness (or perhaps I was just getting better?)  Anyway,  things started to change on the soft pastel front this year as I decided to attend a pastel art course.   This was rather fun and so I started to formulate an idea to one day once again try again with soft pastels.  Today was that day.

I have learnt an awful lot from making this image.  Firstly I am a Conté man through and through.  By lucky happens chance I bought a set of Conté soft pastels today and they seemed to perfect for the way I work – in other words they are not too soft.  Secondly the colour of the underlying paper and it’s quality is very important.  Thirdly don’t give up.

I could go on but I won’t.  I’m really pleased with the results, I have much to work on but today has been a good day.

Silence is Easy.