Today is a cheat day … this piece is from Spring ’13, so if you’re on my newsletter mailing list you will have seen it already.

That’s not to say I didn’t do something new yesterday, just that I’m not going to show it.

Yesterday was a day for catching up on errands for many of us doing Leslie Saeta’s 30 in 30 challenge, so I know I’m not the only one not submitting something new.

I even took the groceries for a drive in search of something exciting, but all I found was snow & more snow, which doesn’t bring joy to my heart!

In the evening, I took supplies to the event I had to attend, and did a small pen sketch of a little still-life I set up & added some watercolour paint. I was rushing, and I’m not happy with it, so I took a long hard look up my sleeve to see if I had any tricks, and I found this one!

Last Spring I took a class on pastels at the Art Gallery of Hamilton, with Clarence Porter  and I really enjoyed it. I’d used pastels for years, on & off, for figure drawing or portraiture, but I don’t remember ever using it for landscape. And I really liked one technique he showed, I think it’s called visual vibration, where you just add strokes of colour, and when you stand back they seem to blend together to describe the form. It’s similar in concept to Seurat’s pointillism. For some reason, it just seemed right for me when using pastels.

The reference picture I used was from my HUGE collection of reference photos from my island home of St. Lucia. I am shutter-happy when in a tropical setting, so my collection should be able to see me through many winters!