Blog

I’m not sure what made me paint the figure this small with large chunky pastel sticks. The total height of the figure is about 2 and a half inches and the head is about the size of my thumbnail.   It was a bit like oil painting a portrait on an 11x14 canvas using a baseball bat for a brush.  What I found thrilling was how the size forced me to focus on the gesture and light.  Details were kept to a minimum for obvious reasons.  The irony is that the small size forces an artist to focus on the big shapes for maximum impact.  This is great way to test the saying “less is more.”

This makes me want to take my pastels outdoors for some plein air figure studies.