• Homepage
• News
• Programme
  • 2010 Archive
  • 2011 Archive
• Membership
• Members Art
• Exhibitions
• Art Links

AUGUST 4TH - VIC BEARCROFT - WILDLIFE IN PASTEL

Our chair opened the meeting and informed us of the Arts in Redditch events planned for August and September and, in particular, the opportunity to show examples of our work on their stall in the market on Sunday the 26th of September. Mr. Vic Bearcroft was then introduced to give his demonstration and talk on “Wildlife in Pastel”.

Vic started by explaining that he now uses velour paper for his pastel work instead of traditional pastel papers. Velour paper has been widely used in America for some time but has only become available here fairly recently. Its handling properties are quite different from those of traditional papers so Vic spent some time explaining these and the different techniques that they require. A traditional pastel painting is somewhat fragile with the pastel particles adhering loosely to the paper surface. It must be handled carefully to avoid smudging and framed in a double mount to avoid a build up of particles between the mount and the glass. Applying fixative to the painting can reduce these problems but this can be at the cost of some degradation of the colours. Velour papers have textured surface of microscopic fibres into which the pastel particles can be pressed. The fibres hold the particles and allow the application of multiple layers of pastel to produce subtle effects. Rubbing in of the pastel is part of the technique with velour paper and the finished painting is quite robust and can even be rolled up for storage without smudging.

For his demonstration painting, Vic had completed a charcoal sketch of a tiger’s head. This was the first stage of his painting process and he continued with the second stage, which was the development of a tonal sketch with the areas of dark, light and mid-tones drawn in. He showed how the shape of his stick of black pastel could be exploited to give fine marks with its corners and broad marks with its flat sides. Mid tones were obtained with light strokes of the pastel and gentle rubbing in and adjustments with further layers of pastel. The third stage was the application of colour and, for this, Vic used grey, bright orange and ivory pastels. He showed how the velour surface allowed colours to be mixed so that colour tones could be varied by the addition of white or black pastel. All the colours were applied with very light strokes and were carefully rubbed in, at this point the treatment remained quite broad with no attempt to render the fine detail.

The fourth stage was the rendering of the texture of the tiger’s fur. This was applied with fine strokes of the appropriate colour using the direction of the strokes to indicate the surface contours of the head. Careful attention was paid to the variations in texture as it could be seen on the reference photograph that the lower neck and the side of the head had longer and coarser fur than the face. Some local colour was added to the nose and to the eyes with Vic spending some time to explain the structure of the eye and how its shadows, reflections and highlights can be rendered accurately. The final stage of the painting was mainly concerned with establishing the tonal range with some light areas being brightened and the dark stripes strengthened. Fine details were added to the eyes and the whiskers drawn in to complete a striking tiger portrait. Vic signed the painting and kindly donated it to us to raise funds for the Art Circle.

Pastel is a popular medium and the audience expressed their thanks for the impressive demonstration of its use on this novel surface.

David Price