Tuesday, September 29, 2009

English landscape

Here's last night's pastel. Pastel paintings are such a pain to store and frame and such, and so easy to ruin with a little friction before they're behind glass...but such an incredible color medium that they're worth it. I also love the fact that there's virtually no set-up time and very little clean-up time, two things that make it easy to still do some art even after a long, tiring day when oils seem unfeasible.

Where to put them all is still something I haven't figured out, though. To me, even the usual suggestion of laying them all flat with glassine leaves in between each one seems not so good, because as someone who doesn't use fixative at all and loves the natural sparkle of pastel, even the weight and touch of glassine on top of a pastel painting is still too much "touch" on it, in my opinion. I did get a small secondhand CD rack where I can kind of prop them up vertically in between the slats, but there's not much room there. I think ideally maybe someday I'll have someone build me something like that with tons of little vertical slats. Other ideas out there?



Thank you all so much for your support around my previous post. I felt the need to share Snoopy's story, perhaps subconsciously as a way to have him "remembered" by more people in his brief lifetime. I don't so much feel bummed for myself for not getting to have him in my life (though that, too), as feel so sad for him, for not even getting a chance to experience the contentment of a long, beloved-kitty life.

Here's our marvelous Lynx once again.





More art on my website: jalapfaff.com

7 comments:

Kelley Carey MacDonald said...

Serene pastel... lovely harmonies. Lynx. That's one contented kitty. And I believe your other kitty (I know you didn't actually get it) will get to live a happier kitty life next time.

Ann Reyes said...

What a beautiful, expressive painting, Jala! I think your love and sadness for Snoopy and Jellyroll are in it. I'm so sorry to hear about little Snoopy. I hope Jellyroll will come home. I have 3 cats and I can feel your loss.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful pastel. I agree, it has some of your recent sadness in it, as it should.
Your CD rack concept for holding pastels is not a bad idea... you could make something like that, or far easier, buy something that can be adapted to your purpose by adding a little acrylic of foamcore. I don't know if it is an issue there, but here, covering things to protect them from dust and other stuff in the air is really important.

Casey Klahn said...

I don't find that the glassine hurts them, except if I slide a sheet out and scratch the pastel work with a corner. Repair time.

I find my flat files indispensable. But, I also want to get them framed asap, to avoid damage by accident.

Maybe you could try flat files with fome core interleaving instead of glassine, and then add structure with strips of fome core in between?

Karen said...

Moody, and pensive.
:( So sorry to hear about the kitty-troubles. Be well.

Patrice said...

I am so loving your new work. The colors, the gestural strokes, the minimalist - and yet complete - compositions.

Excellent work.

And the kitties rock.

http://www.onpainting.wordpress.com said...

Change to oil painting. Cute cat on thigh photo.