Nasir

Nasir. Pen and oil pastels on cartridge paper.

OK, just one more of these pen and oil pastel works, before I get serious again with watercolour. I nearly didn't buy these pastels thinking that I wouldn't use them. Now I'm glad I did, because it allowed me a brief foray into another media and I've loved it!

Again here, I've done an extremely fast outline of the character in ink before applying the oil pastels, and again not worrying too much about keeping within the lines - after all, we never stick rigidly to road markings when we are driving do we? This medium is fantastically fast, a little over half an hour to do this. I smudged the colours in places to blend more subtle light changes and two or several colours together, but for texture (as in the sweater), I've used the pastel sideways on lightly.

For Father's day, my daughter bought me a couple of watercolour painting technique books to study, so I am itching to get back to this medium, and try out some new methods in what is my very favourite method of painting.

Bath, England

Bath, Somerset
Oil Pastel and ink pen on Bristol Board A3

It's been a while since I posted here I know, but I have been busy on a large project, which I'll tell you about some other time.


On a trip to Bath in Somerset recently, I was just in awe of the abundance of Romanesque architecture on every street. Our trip was fleeting, but we have promised ourselves to go back again and spend some more time there, just to try to take everything in.

This is my first foray into oil pastels, and I have to say that it is a very exciting medium. I've tried to keep my work quick and spontaneous, starting first with an ink sketch. Some of the scale is a little adrift, but I just wanted to get the general shapes of the figures and buildings rather than being too accurate.

There are 36 colours in this box, and they are a joy to use, even more so, as I picked the box up second hand at our local car boot sale last weekend for £2 - what a bargain. I think that £2 is going to give me a lot of pleasure!