Tricks, Pastel Tips & Bits

If artists are essentially tricksters of the visible, here are some tricks I've pulled:

1. If using non-sanded or lightly sanded paper, explore rubbing with tissue, chamois, or paper towels. You can get an area of dull color that creates some great surface "tension" or interest in the early stages of your work.
2. Forget the rules about not using your fingers on the paper to blend. If you're shy about this, consider a work that you are about to abandon. Explore a little further and see what you can create; take some color risks.
3. Put down some color with the side of a square, hard pastel and then brush over this with Turpenoid using a cheap, wide brush. There's your custom toned ground. Many papers may work for this. Test it first with a scrap. La Carte certainly won't take the liquid. Wet canvas had a thread about this, too.
   
4. Place an arrow pointing in the direction of your light source just outside of your picture area.
5. Place a bold color near, but not directly adjacent to, its compliment. Notice how it still can create a "pop", anyway.
6. If you're stuck for a color composition, try a split compliment of three colors. Try red, yellow-green and blue green.
7. Separate your intense greens from your regular greens for a while and put them in different storage trays.
8. Allow some paper to show through somewhere in your image.
9. Try a landscape where you use no green on the trees, shrubs or grasses. Make them violet, or blue instead.
10. Dream about your next painting all night.