Flavours #BigPaintingCompetition

 Flavours Holidays are running their big painting competition and think it's a fantastic opportunity for LAS members to get recognised and their art work seen. It would also be great exposure for Ledbury Art Society. Of course, there is also a the chance of winning a £500 voucher for their Italian painting holidays.

Here is how the competition works:

How to enter:

1. Create a painting that sums up for you “La Dolce Vita – What’s your perfect Italian holiday?”
2. Post a photo of the painting on their  Facebook, Twitter or Google+ Page using #BigPaintingCompetition. You can also send the photo as an email to: marketing@flavoursholidays.com 
3. Make sure the work is your own and the painting is in physical media (they don’t accept any digital artwork)

To find out more you can also visit their blog: https://www.flavoursholidays.co.uk/blog/flavours-big-painting-competition/ 

Pascale Bigot - Musicians image

Pascale has now finished the pastel painting she began in our October demonstration. She has kindly sent us this image which is a detail from the painting.

Pascale Bigot - Musicians in Soft Pastel

Pascale is a French born artist who has lived in England for more than 20 years. She has developed her own techniques for soft pastel using strong colours and very contrasting tones, as can be seen in the detail where she is in the process of adding blacks and dark browns to provide contrast for the musician and keyboard. She is also beginning to add outlines for the figures.

To see more of her work visit her website www.pascalebigotart.com

Her supports are usually a white or ivory sandpaper which is not at all abrasive. I think it was Clairefontaine Pastelmat.

Composition is very important for her and she can spend hours sketching until she is happy with the composition. For this demonstration she brought with her a prepared drawing done with graphite pencil. This included blocking in some of the darker shapes and shadows with pencil. Pencil marks can be erased to make corrections to the drawing, something that is almost impossible with pastel. This was a technique she developed for the students she was teaching and now uses it herself.

The drawing can be seen to the right. The next step after fixing with extra hold hairspray, is to add a lightly applied layer of white pastel. This makes it much easier to blend colours which are added subsequently. Light colours are added first and then darker colours above. Blending is done with the fingers, working from light into dark. Smaller areas, such as the musicians' fingers, are blended using a colour shaper.

The images that follow show the work in progress. The painting was not completed at the end of the demonstration but Pascale has promised to send an image of the finished painting.