'Beautiful Bloom' 5x7 pastel ©Karen Margulis sold |
Detail of 'Beautiful Bloom' showing the build up of texture |
To use the dusting technique, you need some pastels that you don't mind shaving. If they are very soft you will get more chunks and crumbles and use up the pastel quickly. If the pastel is too hard you will get a very fine dust. I prefer a medium soft pastel. I am enjoying the consistency and colors of the Jack Richeson soft pastels for this technique. For compound dusting I am building up the painting by dusting, pushing the dust into the paper with a rolling pin and spraying with workable fixative. Instead of this beging the final layer, I keep on layering by repeating the dusting process. See the step by step below:
- (from top left) I am working on a piece of Wallis Belgian Mist mounted to matboard. I block in my flower with some hard and soft pastels. No blending.
- I lay the painting flat on a table and start dusting by shaving the pastel with a palette knife over the painting. I start with the darkest areas. I roll this in with a rolling pin. I use a piece of glassine to keep the colors in place. Now I spray with workable fixative and immediately start shaving the next layer.
- I have repeated step two 4 or 5 times and the pastel is getting thick.
- To finish the painting I put it back up on my easel and refine areas with soft pastels. I also do some negative painting by removing pastel and drawing with a steel push pin. Love to do this!
Read more on Dusting HERE
Read more about using a steel push pin HERE
4 comments:
Thank you for posting this. This seems very interesting. I should try it at one point.
Thanks for visiting my blog Karin. It is a fun technique!
Wow I had heard of and tries dusting before but I've never done it in repeated layers. I'll definitely have to try this one. The rolling pin coupled with glassine paper is a great idea. (Adding to 2-do list).
Have you ever tried modeling paste? It's great for building texture as well though it does use up the pastels quickly.
Thanks for the tip on modeling paste Vanessa! I will have to give that one a try! I appreciate you sharing!
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