I bemoaned to my friend that I couldn’t believe established artists weren’t using the internet and Photoshop to reach and teach students coast to coast in a personal way that didn’t require expensive travel, or limit the student to local teachers. Then I discovered Bill James, master of three media, who offered just that.
I submitted my 4 best recent pieces for an overall review. The upshot was that I lacked dramatic lighting and attendant value changes, which would not only add focus and energy, but would also allow 3-dimensional form to be emphasized, adding depth. What I thought was bright light was just too dim. What Bill did was SHOW me how to envision the life back into my own work. He digitally re-tooled one of my jpgs to show me what HE saw that was missing. This is even better than having a teacher ‘show’ you on your own canvas.
So, here are the Sycamore Branches from November 2009, re-polished.
One thing I confirmed from this exercise is that my Rembrandt pastels just aren’t cutting it. The brightest brights are just plain flat and true darks outside of pure black are non-existent. I was able to get the pop only after finding that a few of my Sennelier were applicable.
This has set me on the great search for better quality pastels. This is going to be a considerable investment, as you know. And I’ve never ever been okay with the 16 color crayon box. SO, I have ordered a few selected super-darks from Diane Townsend Soft Form and Terry Ludwig and some mid tones from Great American ArtWorks to see how these compare to Rembrandt and how they layer.
If I like them, the long term plan is to cover all the bases with a couple sets of Great American, selected Ludwigs, and mostly Unison. This also forces me into a ‘big box’ storage system for all the brands. I’ve spent many hours comparing every pastel storage system I can find….It’s looking like a Heilman box (gulp).
