Category Archives: Studio
Q: How do you decide when a pastel painting is finished?
“Magisterial,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 58” x 38” in progress
A: During the months that it takes to create a pastel painting, I search for arresting colors that work well together. The goal is to make a painting that I have never seen before and that leads the viewer’s eyes around in interesting ways. To do this I build up and blend together as many as 25 to 30 layers of pigment. I am able to complete some areas, like the background, fairly easily – maybe with just six or seven layers of black Rembrandt pastel. The more realistic parts of a pastel painting take many more applications. In general, details always take plenty of time to refine and perfect.
No matter how many pastel layers I apply, however, I never use fixatives. It is difficult to see this in reproductions of my work, but some of the finished surfaces achieve a texture akin to velvet. My technique involves blending each layer with my fingers, pushing the pastel deep into the tooth of the sandpaper, and mixing new colors directly on the paper. Fortunately, the sandpaper holds plenty of pigment so I am able to include lots of details.
Before I pronounce a pastel painting finished, I let it sit against a wall in my studio for a few days so I can look at it later with fresh eyes. I consider a piece done when it is as good as I can make it, when adding or subtracting something would diminish what is there. Always, I try to push myself and my materials to their limits, using them in new and unexpected ways.
Comments are welcome.
Q: What’s on the easel today?
My next project!
A. I am starting another “Bolivianos” pastel painting. It’s hard to believe, but this is number 34 in the series! This body of work began in 2017 and the paintings continue to keep improving, I believe.
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 672
Barbara’s Studio
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Beware of first impressions; try to have more presence of mind.
You should not be deceived by the eager promises of your best friends, by offers of help from influential people, or by the interest which men of talent seem to take in you, into thinking that there is anything real in what they say – real in the way of results, I mean. Many people are full of good intentions when they speak, but their eagerness subsides appreciably when it comes to action, like blusterers, or people who make angry scenes […]. And you, yourself, try to be more cautious in the way you welcome people, and above all, avoid these ridiculous attentions; they’re only offered on the impulse of the moment.
Cultivate a well-ordered mind, it’s your only road to happiness; and to reach it, be orderly in everything, even in the smallest details.
The Journal of Eugène Delacroix, edited by Hubert Wellington
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Pearls from artists* # 670
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
I’ve had to keep defining and defending myself as a writer every single day of my adult life – constantly reminding and re-reminding my soul and the cosmos that I’m very serious about the business of creative living, and that I will never stop creating, no matter what the outcome, and no matter how deep my anxieties and insecurities may be.
Over time I’ve found the right tone of voice for these assertions, too. It’s best to be insistent, but affable. Repeat yourself, but don’t get shrill. Speak to your darkest and most negative interior voices the way a hostage negotiator speaks to a violent psychopath: calmly, but firmly. Most of all, never back down. You cannot afford to back down. The life you are negotiating to save, after all, is your own.
Elizabeth Gilbert in Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
Comments are welcome!
Q: What’s on the easel today?
Work in progress
A. I’m working on “Herald,” 26” x 20,” soft pastel on sandpaper.
Comments are welcome!
Q: Pastel dust can be toxic. Do you use air filters in your work space?
Barbara’s Studio
A: No, but I wear a surgical mask when I work, to prevent breathing pastel dust. Also, I use a barrier cream, called Artgard, to prevent pigment being absorbed into my skin through cuts. I take care that my head is always higher than my hand as I work, so the dust is below my mouth and nose. It’s difficult to tell from the photo but my easel is tilted forward, allowing pastel dust to fall onto the easel and floor.
I am well aware of the toxicity of pastel, especially with colors that contain cadmium, and believe I take the proper precautions. After forty years working with soft pastel, so far I’ve managed to stay healthy.
Comments are welcome.
Q: Why do you have so many pastels?
Barbara’s Studio
A: Our eyes can see infinitely more colors than the relative few that are made into pastels. When I layer pigments onto the sandpaper substrate, I mix new colors directly on the paper. The short answer is, I need lots of pastels so that I can make new colors.
I have been working exclusively with soft pastel for 40 years. Whenever I feel myself getting into a rut in how I select and use my colors, I look around for new materials to try. Fortunately, new brands of soft pastels are continually coming onto the market. There are pastels that are handmade by artists – I love discovering these – and new colors manufactured by well-known pastel companies. Some sticks of soft pastel are oily, some are buttery, some more powdery, some crumble easily, some are more durable. Each one feels distinct in my hand.
Furthermore, they each have unique mixing properties. It’s an under-appreciated science that I stumbled upon (or maybe I invented it, I’m not sure since I cannot know how other pastel painters work). In this respect soft pastel is very different from other paint media. Oil painters, for example, need only a few tubes of paint to make any color in the world. I don’t go in much for studying color theory as a formal discipline. If you want to really understand and learn how to use color, try soft pastel and spend 10,000+ hours (the amount of time Malcolm Gladwell says, in his book, “Outliers,” that it takes to master a skill) figuring it all out for yourself!
Comments are welcome.
Pearls from artists* # 663
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
”No one has made a list of places where the extraordinary may happen and where it may not. Still, there are indications. Among crowds, in drawing rooms, among easements and comforts and pleasures, it is seldom seen. It is more likely to stick to the risk-taker than the ticket-taker. It isn’t that it would disparage comforts, or the set routines of the world, but that its concern is directed to another place. Its concern is the edge, and a making of a form out of the formlessness that is beyond the edge.”
– Mary Oliver
…Mary Oliver was right. Masterpieces are not conceived at cocktail parties, clubs, or on crowded beaches. If you want to summon your muse and set the stage for astonishing things to happen, silence is the most essential prerequisite. It is where the real alchemy of art happens. You need to calm yourself in that fragile place that exists parallel to this one. When some intruder from the underworld of quotidian life smashes through, demanding our focus, all the glittering magic scatters, and flies away.
Kate Kretz in Art From Your Core: A Holistic Guide to Visual Voice
Comments are welcome!
In celebration of the 13th anniversary of my blog three days from now, I am republishing the very first post from July 15, 2012. Q: What does it take to be an artist, especially one living and working in New York?
Barbara’s Studio (in 2012) with works in progress.
A: The three Big P’s – Patience, Persistence, and Passion. Without all three you will not have the stamina to work tirelessly for very little external reward. You can expect help from no one.
There are so many obstacles to art-making and countless reasons to just give up. When you really think about it, it’s amazing that great art gets made at all. So why do we do it? Above all it’s about making our time on earth matter, about devotion to our innate gifts and love of our hard-fought creative process.
And, my God, it even gets harder as we get older! So what do we do? We dig in that much deeper. It’s a most noble and sacred calling – you know when you have it – and that’s what separates those of us who are in it for the long haul from the wimps, fakers, and hangers-on. I say to my fellow artists who continue to work despite the endless challenges, we are all true heroes!
These words still ring true and it’s good, even for me, to occasionally be reminded.
Most importantly, THANK YOU to my 222,000+ subscribers for taking this journey with me. When I began this blog in 2012, I had no idea it would prove to be so popular… WOW!
Comments are welcome!
barbararachkoscoloreddust.com 
Pearls from artists* # 673
Oct 22
Posted by barbararachkoscoloreddust
Barbara’s Studio
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
You may occasionally have the opportunity to publicly comment about the work, which helps to shape its life, but others will also interpret, criticize, and project their own agendas onto it. You must learn to be ok with that. You cannot follow your art around, explaining it and defending it. Once released, the life of your work depends on all sorts of factors completely out of your control. Separating your ego and self-worth from what you produce can be challenging, but it is essential. It protects your vital studio activity from the damaging effects of the outside world. Letting go of the old work also frees you up to move forward and focus on the next great idea.
Kate Kretz in Art From Your Core: A Holistic Guide to Visual Voice
Comments are welcome!
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