There is an extended discussion running at the moment, in the Pastel Artists’ group on the LinkedIn network, about the choice of paper on which to work. At first I thought that this was an excessively picky discussion, and my response was to point out that a good part of the fun of working in any medium is to try different supports. Try anything once! In fact, I’ve even done (quite a successful) oil pastel piece working on an old cotton handkerchief glued to a piece of board. I do like to experiment with different surfaces, and learn a lot from that. So why all the fuss if you can’t get your favourite paper?
Then I have spent the best part of today carefully preparing the support for my next picture (acrylic on canvas). I know exactly what I want to achieve …. and there is a reason for that, because if I don’t get it right I will spend a good deal of time fighting the characteristics of the surface on which I’m working. So in this case I find that I too am being very picky indeed.
The famous passage from the Book of Ecclesiastes, in The Bible, comes to mind.
“For everything there is a season, and for every activity under heaven a time: a time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot,” and so on.
It seems that there is a time to be adventurous and experimental, and a time to be picky. Today I’m being picky. Tomorrow might be very different.