John Blockley paints a pastel especially for Leisure Painter and guides us through his working processes.

'My order of working is fairly similar whatever the subject. I like to begin with a clear image of the main structural elements, but these will be few and I state them precisely with quick pastel strokes. Then I loosely apply broad areas of colour in a seemingly random manner but which will be developed in later stages to consolidate the structural pattern.

'This structural basis is vital to the painting and remains unchanged whilst elsewhere the spontaneous paint movement usually leads to new responses and gives fresh impetus. I strengthen a tone, soften a tone, add colour, subtract colour, all the time being concerned with supporting the initial idea.

'Having established the general pattern, mood, colour and tonal relationships, the painting is completed by strengthening the structural pattern. Edges are hardened and defined, selected colour areas are intensified, drawing is added and so on, trying to build up to a cohesive whole in which the initial intention is remembered and retained.

'In the flower group demonstrated here the main structural elements were very pronounced. The deep blue flower at the top left of the group is a positive hard-edged shape and is carried by spiky, brittle stems which radiate from the main stalks of the group. The hardness of the blue flower shape is balanced by the soft glow of the pink on the right. I wanted to integrate the group with the background, seeing it all as a whole rather than cut-out flower shapes painted on a tinted background, and so I planned a background of light tone breaking into the flower shapes and containing random patches of blue and mauve to repeat these colours which existed in the flowers.

Detail showing texture

'The flowers were past their best, nearly dead. I thought that for my purpose this was perhaps not a disadvantage and might even be helpful. I had no interest in botanical accuracy and no wish to produce a literal copy of a bunch of flowers.

'It seems to me that an immaculately detailed study often produces a stiff, lifeless result which totally fails to register the luminosity and freshness of the subject. I think that perhaps a smudge or two of colour with the occasional well placed hint of detail might more effectively reflect the spirit of the flowers, and so the imperfect model contained sufficient information for my purpose and certainly ensured that I was not beguiled into detailed study of the flower structure.

'I placed the flowers in an old, uninteresting glass jug with no attempt at arrangement.

'Pastel, with its obvious colour range, seemed to be an obvious choice of medium especially if applied in a direct unrubbed manner. This is an exciting way of working, and a variety of pastel strokes are available to produce interesting effects. If the stick of pastel is dragged on its side across the paper, slabs of rich colour are obtained, or the end of the pastel may be used to produce a stippled effect, or lines of colour may be cross-hatched over the paper, sometimes with different colours so that one colour drags across another to create interesting colour variations.

READ OUR GUIDE TO PASTEL PAINTING HERE

Detail showing texture and cross-hatching

'Pastel is capable of a wide range of handling from matt, rubbed surfaces to intensely shimmering effects. With each stroke, granules of opaque pastel are deposited and cling to the paper support so that it becomes surfaced with minute particles of pure pigment, which, if left undisturbed, will reflect the light'.

Stage 1

I concentrate on establishing the essential structure of the group. This is clinical process.

Three main stalks project upwards from the jar, ruler straight and are drawn precisely and with quick upward strokes of green pastel. I choose suddenly to arrest this upward movement with blobs of colour which momentarily halt the eye, before the slender flower stems stab upwards and outwards.

These blobs of colour are important to me in plotting the flower structure and their positions were carefully thought about. They are spaced unequally and at different angles from one another. The jars indicated with a few lines and the curved leaf profiles are flicked in with quick wrist actions.

Stage 1: The essential structure is carefully established

The drawing is selective and picks out only a few important directional elements from the mass of stalks and leaves before me. Some of these chosen lines are repetitive, with some of the leaf profiles echoing others.

Finally, with a combination of line and slabs of colour I block in the important hard-edged shapes of the deep blue flower head at the top of the group and indicate a few preliminary suggestions of background colour.

Stage 2

Now the tempo changes from the clinical analysis and placing of the linear structure to a more liberal placing of colour.

At this early stage of the work the pastel is applied loosely, scribbled I suppose, leaving plenty of paper showing between the pastel strokes. This open way of placing the pastel is an exploratory process and gives opportunity for adjusting the colour as the work proceeds.

This is easier and cleaner than trying to remove and adjust heavily applied colour which will have filled the grain of the paper. Mostly, in this preliminary stage, I use the end of the pastel as a drawing tool to produce lines of colour and occasionally I turn the pastel on to its side and drag it lightly over the paper to produce blocks of colour.

Stage 2: Colour is placed with loosely applied pastel

Another reason for leaving paper showing between the loosely applied pastel strokes is that further strokes of a different colour can be made between the strokes so that some degree of optical mixing is obtained similar to the pointillist technique.

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Additionally, some actual mixing will occur where one pastel colour drags alongside its neighbours. Then again, if the pastel strokes are deliberately hatched over the first colour, further mixing is obtained.

So far I have been using soft pastels choosing Daler-Rowney colours of sap green, a dark tone of coeruleum for the flowerhead and the jar, very pale tones of coeruleum for the whitish patches of the background, occasional touches of purple-brown and mauve.

Stage 3

So far the colour application has been exploratory and somewhat tentative but now I begin to consolidate the colour with further pastel strokes, sometimes using the end of the pastel to make lines of colour, but increasingly I use the side of the pastel to produce areas of colour.

Mostly I increase the colour intensity by applying further colour over the first exploratory layer, pressing the pastel into the paper to fill the grain. In some places I partly overlay previous colour with a new colour.

The background light is considerably increased with diagonal strokes of pastel and I further define the radiating green stem by increasing the intensity of the light, negative shapes between them.

Pink pastel is worked into the background to hint at flowers in the top right of the painting. Having intensified the colour areas I now introduce a favourite technique.

I briskly slash a cream white pastel pencil over the painting – this is especially evident in the light background but also over some of the leaves and in the pink flower area.

Stage 3: The colour is consolidated

The pastel pencil is harder than the soft pastel and so it easily drags the pastel side-ways.

The pencil is slashed quite savagely over the pastel surface superimposing its own colour on to the painting and simultaneously dragging the existing soft pastel work across its neighbouring colours (see the details here). Thus, a white pencil will draw white lines over the work and at the same time will drag green, say, across a neighbouring pink then progressively will drag a mixture of the pink and green across the next neighbouring colour.

Depending upon the colours used and the dexterity of working them, this kind of colour application can produce rich textured surfaces that positively glow.

Occasionally, I rub the pastel gently to produce small areas of gently diffused colour in contrast to adjacent areas of energy.

Final Stage

In this stage I merely continue to consolidate the pastel work.

Some areas take further pastel pressed hard into the paper so that the grain of the paper is filled and edges are made sharper. In places I continue the Contè pencil treatment and to complete the work I intensify small areas of colour by really pressing the end of a pastel into the paper to create flickering highlights.

Finally, I close framed the painting – without a mount.

The frame is deeply scooped and I hand painted it with acrylic colours to harmonise with those of the painting. The frame was given several coats of gesso, and each one rubbed down with fine sandpaper and then over-painted with films of varied transparent colour. The underpainting of gesso glows through these transparent films to give an overall effect of palest lilac but with hints of colours repeating those in the painting showing through.

I have tried to produce a totality of painting and frame with the vibrancy of the pastel medium contained within the translucent treatment of the enclosing frame.

Final stage with frame: Flower Piece, pastel (18” x 12”)

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This article by John Blockley is taken from the March 1989 issue of Leisure Painter

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An advert from March 1989 Leisure Painter advertising the inaugural exhibition of Caxton House Gallery (The Artists' Publishing Company offices) which took place from 12 to 22 April 1989. Another little piece of our history!

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