Blog Archives
Q: What is your favorite thing about creating on sandpaper? (Cassandra Alvarado Oliphant via Instagram)
Posted by barbararachkoscoloreddust
A: Undoubtedly, I could not make my work without UART sandpaper since my entire pastel technique evolved around it. I use 400 and 500 grit. My favorite thing about it is its ‘tooth’ (i.e. texture or roughness).
Over the many months I spend creating a painting, I build layer upon layer of soft pastel. Because this paper is relatively “toothy,” it accepts all of the pastel the painting needs. And as many people know, I own and use thousands of soft pastels!
Many layers of soft pastel and several months of studio time go into creating each painting. My self-invented technique is analogous to the glazing techniques used by the Old Masters, who slowly built up layers of thin oil paint to achieve a high degree of finish. Colors were not only mixed physically, but optically.
Similarly, I gradually build up layers of soft pastel, as many as thirty, to create a pastel painting. After applying a color, I blend it with my fingers and push it into the sandpaper’s tooth. It mixes with the color beneath to create a new color, continually adding richness, saturation, and intensity to the piece. By the time a pastel painting is finished, the colors are bold, vibrant, and exciting.
Comments are welcome!
Posted in 2020, Art Works in Progress, Creative Process, Pastel Painting, Studio, Working methods
Tags: Accepts, adding, analogous, applying, beneath, build up, Cassandra Alvarado Oliphant, continually, create, degree, exciting, favorite, fingers, finish, glazing, gradually, Instagram, intensity, layers, oil paint, Old Masters, optically, painting, pastel technique, physically, relatively, richness, roughness, sandpaper, saturation, self-invented, soft pastel, texture, thousands, tooth, UART sandpaper, vibrant