Ian Risley Pastel Artist

 Local artist Ian Risley demonstrated pastel techniques on April’s club night.  His relaxed style and humour engaged us whilst explaining the merits of different pastels and how to use them, and the paper he used spending time on deciding which colour paper to use that would enhance the picture.  He showed us the way he used blending techniques by placing a little pastel colour at the side of the paper and using a stump picked up a little colour to add into the painting.  Also how to sharpen pastel pencils taking the wood away with a blade and using sandpaper to develop the point.

Ian explained how over the years he had developed his style from blending the whole picture to now blending the under-painting and not doing so on the top layers.   The subject for the evening was a Barn Own, which Ian started off by drawing the outline with charcoal, then taking off some of the black to leave more of an imprint, as he didn’t want to spoil the white that would go on top.  Then working from dark to light, and spending some time on the eyes and the main structure of the bird, using different colours and building up the layers.  Finally he put on some white which completed the bird, then he finished off the perch.

Ian never fixes any pastel paintings as he says it dulls the colours, and if framed correctly they would be ok.  In the final few minutes he asked if there were any questions and an interesting discussion took place.

He produced a lovely little barn owl, which he says are very popular, people always buy them, and lucky us, he donated it to the club!  Thanks Ian.

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