we have been given five weeks to paint, evrey Monday. I decided to make a puppet, a large one based on my Darren/Atlas character. I brought three sheets of ply to cut out and paint. I decided that as I was already making a 3D sculpture a puppet would be redundant and unmanageable I had discussed my drawing with Jill in an assessment and had said that I never cover a page, just draw in the middle and realised that these three rigid sheets were perfect for painting. 140 cm by 60 is quite a surface. I used Gesso and sand paper but found that the wood was still very absorbent and acrylic paint although they left an intersting image, especially after sanding it was not what I was looking for. Patels were the answer, the rough surface of gessoed ply is a perfect ‘toothed surface’ for soft ( not oil) pastels.

it was immediately exciting, making marks with chalk on a rough surface, in colour, I felt like a cave artist of the first graffities. Working from one side of a frame to the other was also a new and interesting experience, a challenge in composition as I was synthesizing half a dozen photographs

at an exhibition at the Royal Academy ‘Impressionists on paper” I looked hard at the Degas pastel ‘After the Bath’

A true master, Degas was able to use a new medium in a fact and comfortable way, using layers , blending and subtraction in erasure with fast and confident stokes to produce a stunning picture in compostion, colour and tone

for my third board I went outside on a beautiful spring morning and painted the scene from the studio balcony. It was very intersting to track the movement of light during the day, from trees in bsilhouette in bright morning sunlight to the the even overcast light of the afternoon.

on the 4th week I worked on the boards, already fixed but they took a further layer of pastel comfortably, I was able to think more about the light I hoped to capture and how to sucessfully add depth by renedring the far back ground soft and faded. I am not so sure how successful I was.

I coated a sheet of heavy accrylic with Golden Pastel ground, diluted with 40 to 50 with water and a small amount of yellow ochre acrylic paint. It resulted in a a good well toothed surface but I could have added less than half yellow ochre (enough to cover a finger nail. I learnt that some artists colour differnt areas of ground as a prepared background. The result was a pleasing yellow ochre background, I decided to paint a familiar sunset at a beach I had visited in Brittany . The sea was a challenge as it is as I used a mix of ochre and a silvery grey. I was satisfied to wherr i had got to in three hours, unfortunately I used a very wet fisatave from too close and the pigments ran. In a not unpleasing way. I look forward to see the results next week