Where the wild things live, Detail
Pastel on Arches paper, 58x39cm
'Where the wild things live' - I was well chuffed with that title. She got the eeriness and moodiness straight away. I made it a couple of weeks ago when I took more of the handmade Arches paper to draw with pastels. The palette is again similar to the earlier one, but less limited. The marks are drawing marks with some later reworking to calm some areas and to introduce more highlights. It is less sketchy than the previous one, and - at least for me - a fair amount of time working and reworking was spent on it.
I was meaning to write-up more on Wolf Kahn's approach to landscape as subject matter along with this post. But: I left my notes on that in a notebook in Glasgow, while I am - again - in Berlin for a week. So: the WK's landscapisms have to wait a little long.
Do go and visit the wild things in the meantime, though:
Where the wild things live,
Pastel on Arches paper, 58x39cm
* oh, dear, there's a bit of stage fright going on right now:
what if the detail was so much better than the whole piece???
what if the detail was so much better than the whole piece???
7 comments:
The wild things may live there, but even though it has an eerie feel to it, there is a sense of light and life too that comes across strongly.
I love the strong reflections in the pool of water and that shot of red/orange in the trees. Wonderful!
I love the title and this has really got the feel of a pool in the wild. You've got that twiggy haziness thing down pat.
The details were intriguing - both her and on Watermarks - but I definitely prefer the whole thing!
Hello Gesa, I like your pasteldrawings, especially the intense colors.
Nice blog!
Thank you! - part of my fright (not freight lol) was about the quality of photos, I admit. Sometimes I find it really helpful to get that little bit of distance a photograph can offer, but with this one it seemed to do something else.
Thanks for the twiggy haziness, Katherine - it's curious to see what marks pastels can make when drawing and I do like them that way. Will stick with this for a while.
Jeanette: the reflections received quite a bit of attention: to split the perspective - straightdown on the right hand side; more diagonally on the left, some of them rather clear, others more diffuse.
Thanks again :)
Wonderful rhythm and energy here, Gesa. I like the vibrancy of the color on this white paper and your "drawing" marks as well.
I wonder which Arches is handmade? Forgive my ignorance.
But the large size, and the particular paper help to make this a fantastic work! I love, love, love it.
There is a pattern to your choice of working and texture - very compelling.
Cheers, Brian and Casey - the white, crisp paper is working wonders for me. The paper I have is Arches 88, unsized, 300gsm and Greatart says it's handmade? But I didn't find that statement elsewhere.
Yes - the large size (this is only half a sheet though) makes it work with the drawing marks - I need to remember that. Often I tend to go smaller rather than bigger; I want to try some large monotypes next time, that should have an interesting effect too.
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