I’ve been working in pastel quite a lot recently, almost always rewarding. There are so many ways of using them; the immediacy of the colour in your hand lends itself to experimentation. I recalled one in my book “The Bridges of Dee” that I had particularly liked and hope you do too.
Look closely and you will see that it is composed of hundreds of tiny crosses. I’d seen an article in a magazine about working in this way which sounded productive.
The sky is a mixture of pale blue, apricot, yellow and mauve laid over each other at random, and quickly, even paler ones near the horizon. The juxtaposition of these complementary colours creates luminosity. The essence of the technique is to work at speed so that the crosses don’t become neat and laboured.
The bridge is a mixture of separately applied greens and reds, purples being added for the underside of the arches. Turquoises in the water sparkle against the orangy reeds (more complementaries), while the nearest tree is an exuberant mix of all the darks available.
It’s a lovely noisy technique, and comes highly recommended!
Crossillism? As effective but quicker than pointillism?! Fascinating to be able to zoom in on the detail of this.
It’s a very energetic-looking technique, isn’t it. Must be very cheering to do!