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| 'Down by the Marsh' 11x14 pastel ©Karen Margulis click here to purchase $145 |
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| 'Down in the Meadow' 11x14 pastel click here to purchase $145 |
Today I tackled the box of Albert Handell's landscape pastel set by Unison. I am devoting this week to organizing the sets of pastels I purchased from an artist who was downsizing. It was not an easy task to break up this beautiful set of pastels.
But if I was going to use them it needed to be done. I found a cigar box and lined it with foam. Then I removed the wrappers and broke each pastel in half. I just snapped them in half but if you want to be more precise you can score them with a blade first. An hour later I was ready to paint!
I took out my notes from the workshop. I use a new notebook for every workshop and keep them all together on a shelf. I had written down several of Albert's pearls of wisdom and this set of pastels will really be helpful for painting the greens. Here are a couple of 'pearls'
- The trick to greens is balancing them with Mauves (purples)
- Modify your greens with mauves
- If you want to soften a green and make it go away....then use a mauve.
- "Whenever I think Green...I think Mauve"
See a pattern here? If you have a look at the set you can see there is a great selection of greens and purples. I had just the paintings to try out the green/mauve idea. They were unfinished demos of Southeastern Landscapes. Both were very green. They needed more mauve! I enjoyed working with this set although the Unisons are a bit harder than I usually like. I will work with them some more and will do a more thorough review.
Here is a link to Albert Handell's website with information about purchasing this set
6 comments:
It really is VERY green here in the southeast. I was trying to qualify that once to someone who lives in a very brown arid area of California, and they didn't believe me when I described spring in Florida. @@
Loving your southeast paintings from this post an the previous one. :)
I am a watercolor painter who began to paint with pastels this year so your information about new pastels is very valuable to my learning process. Thanks for such a great blog and now I know to balance my greens with mauves!
That's good to know about green and mauve.
A new box of pastels is more appealing than a box of chocolates. :)
Thanks Beena! I know it is hard to imagine all of our green when you live in an arid part of the country. Actually I love painting arid though!
Thank you Christina~ So glad you found my blog!
I agree Patti....give me pastels any day!
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