Looking down the Yarra

Here is another painting for my possible Australian Exhibition – I might even have them all done if this Solitude continues!  It is of three of us standing on a bridge in Melbourne looking down the Yarra river.  This is late July there, so Winter-time but sunny.

I’m using oil pastels.  I have been exploring what I can do with them to keep ahead of those of my students interested in this medium!  I’ve tried blending them, but my preferred painting method is to retain brush, knife or pastel marks.  I like the vigour they impart to a picture.  This image is nicely chunky so strong marks are exactly right, and the three people are very individual in colour and pose, the obvious focus .

The painting is done on mid green mount board.  I think it helps as there are no unintended bits of white to distract the viewer.  Strange, isn’t it!  I love those flecks of white in watercolour, but find them bothersome in any other medium.  The midtone disappears happily into the other tones.

The buildings and sky are blocks of colour, the pastel used firmly in one direction only (this is the sky, these are buildings,so there).   My new oil pastels go on thickly enough if I push hard    Looking at them again I think the white should be calmed down a bit so that the white hair stands out.  But the buildings are there merely to provide context and some perspective.  I haven’t put the windows in – oil pastels and me don’t do detail.    The figures are created in blocks of colour too, with high contrasts to suggest the sunlight.  Such blending as has occurred is the natural result a working one pastel over another.   How little one needs to define an image!  I recognise these people though there are no details to help; my most successful oil pastel to date.