TECHNIQUES BECOME PERSONAL INTERPRETATIONS

  The advanced class consisted of students with 1 to 3 years of high school art experience and abilities varied from good to extraordinary. Even those with "beginning" experiences who consistently experimented, studied color combinations, applied previous experiences to solutions and tried to achieve higher and higher standards had excellent results.

  Before beginning the pastel unit, we first reviewed color classifications on 6"x9" colored construction papers to see how colored backgrounds affected the pastel applications. Next, we studied 4 basic techniques in a variety of color practices. They were: Smooth Blends, Gesture, Broken Color and One Directional drawings.

Small examples to the left and larger applications to the right follow.

  The first example is "Smooth Blends", building on previous value,tint, shade and complement color studies. Applied strokes could be loose, very controlled or anywhere in-between and color blends were practiced with simple objects on various colored papers. The apple to the left demonstrates a practice of this first technique. The right example defines it in a larger application.

  This second example is a style of line drawing introduced here:"Gesture Drawing". Generally, it is very loose, free, overlaps of line which build shadows and texture as light and dark multidirectional lines build the desired form. The excitement of this style with pastels is in the variety of blends, strokes, and color build that can be created. Layer upon layer of bold strokes can be strengthened with the use of fixatif or hair spray in-between each application. It's one of my favorite line styles.

Let's move on to the other two techniques on the next page.