I have remarked on several occasions in past editions of this blog that I like to experiment with new supports for my painting. I’ve tried all kinds of surfaces, including a cotton handkerchief glued over a piece of board. At the start of my engagement with art I remember even working with pastels directly onto plywood. If I ever encounter a new kind of paper I just have to have a go. Sometimes the result is brilliant …. and sometimes less so. The ideal situation is when the colour and the surface of the support just appear to “cooperate” with each other. I don’t know how else to express it. On such occasions my attempts to apply the pigment feel as if they are being actively aided by the nature of the surface. At the other end of the spectrum, however, I have found myself engaged in a struggle, in which the support has to be subdued, and somehow kicked into cooperation. That’s where I am today.
With great enthusiasm I have launched into another of my “Beyond” series, in which some vaguely perceived distant prospect is glimpsed through a chasm, or cleft in the landscape. The idea came to me first on the island of Orkney, where the coast is split frequently by gashes in the cliffs. Up there these are called “geos”. This picture is based upon last week’s climbing trip to Stanage Edge, in Derbyshire. I was really excited to see an interesting rock formation, and enthusiastic about trying to develop the image as a picture. Before I went down to Norfolk for my nephew’s wedding I spent quite some time going through my drawer of pastel papers, and selecting one I thought would be good to work with. What I ended up with was a paper called Pastelmat. The name suggests that it has been specifically formulated to meet the needs of an artist working with pastels. Really?
I drew the design out with a soft pencil without any difficulty, but soon after I began to block in areas of basic colour I realised that this was going to be no picnic. The paper does indeed have a pronounced “tooth” that holds the colour well. The trouble is that it has a very soft structure, and this makes it difficult to move the pigment about afterwards, with fingers, a brush or a torchon (some people call them “stubbing pencils”, I gather) without actually damaging the surface of the paper, because it is so soft. After spending several hours wrestling with this stuff I believe that I might have come to understand it. The way in which I began to work depended upon the creation of thin veils of colour, at least in some areas. As things have developed, however, I have come to believe that the texture of the paper means that it probably works best when you lather on a load of dense pastel. The impression of delicate veils will need to be created by very careful choice of (and blending of) the pastel on the paper. I really have not got the hang of this yet, and I’m reluctant to chuck it away and start again with a different surface. As things are, however, painting feels very much like a “martial art” in which I am fighting against rather then cooperating with my materials. Vincera! however, as Pavarotti declared.