Mark making. oil pastels. tonal exercise. pencil + detail

I really enjoyed playing around with the oil pastels and seeing how they change when superimposed over other colours. Adding ink seemed to compliment the medium. The felt tip pen did not work over the oiliness of the pastels. The ink, over, gave another quality when allowed to drip.






The quality of the pastels were softer and I think have more atmosphere or perhaps they might be easier to use? I am not sure how much is due to the particular range of colours I have.

Compared with oil paints, I find it quite difficult to get the colour I want with both pastels and the oil variety. I am more used to working with a limited palette and feel I now need a bigger range of colours. I am missing the purity of alizaran crimson, cadmium red and cerulean blue.

The onion was done in oil pastel. My first attempt at trying to get the colours to match the object in this medium.
Balancing the tones to create the background was not easy and getting the fine detail on the onion was even harder.










This was a drawing using pencil and cross hatching to show the form of a rock and two oyster shells.
I found it difficult to draw larger than life size in my A3 sketch book. When I looked at the objects I saw them as they were but when looking at the page, I had to see them enlarged, therefore translating as I drew.
I think the cross hatching worked for the rock but the shells had very subtle forms within he larger shapes and I felt that the pencil lines were too harsh for the subject.








This is a pastel drawing on A3 showing tone. I made a mistake starting it in my sketch book as half way through I wished I had made it larger. I also had trouble with a couple of my pastels which refused to perform to order. Crimson/purple would not get onto the page. It was difficult to get the detail of the telephone on such a small scale with pastels. The composition is very boring and I tried to make the shadows stop it from being too much a line up of objects.My aim was for harmony but I don't feel I have achieved that.

I also made a BIG mistake by not putting any natural forms into the group. I think I just looked at the picture in the book and took it from there. Too interested in the objects and not the small pears in the picture.

These two drawings, to me, are both on the wrong size of paper. The oyster shells should have been on A3 and the telephone and pots on A2. An other solution would be to put more objects with the oysters on A2 and less objects on the pastel drawing on A3.