Creating Memories

Where to start?

It is early days for my pastel art journey. I consider myself a complete novice when it comes to working with pastels, especially soft pastel, there´s so much to learn but I´m really looking forward to it.

I work fulltime in completely different lines of business; drawing has been my dearest hobby since childhood. My first love was (when it comes to drawing tools…) graphite pencils. The second phase came when I realised that I needed more depth, more contrast and so charcoal pencils were the next step to take. At some point I had an epiphany that using coloured, tanned paper brought more life to my drawings. They really popped out and it was like a new world! Soon I was brave enough to try colours and now I can see that this was like a path that lead me naturally to my true love: pastels. Quite quickly I realised that pastel pencils were “my thing”. The key thing was that it was so easy to use light over dark with them, and for example making fur texture reached a different level.

But now I feel I want to bring something new to my drawing table and I feel a strong attraction to Unison Colour Pastels. It is time to learn how to work with them and I´m so happy I´ve already started!

Funny how things sometimes combine, come together without a bigger plan.  I had two things: a perfect reference picture and a will to use ONLY Unison Colour Pastels. Like they were meant to be?! There was only one thing to do:     draw it !!!

Creating Memories 1

First a few words about this reference photo. Something that I´m very proud of is I took it myself. It´s a summer memory of my son in the sun having fun. (Gosh, that rhymes!) It´s a few years old, the year was 2017, but as soon as I saw it, I knew I wanted or maybe more, needed to draw it. It had all the elements that would make a great painting, the light was brilliant, the shadows and highlights, and the emotion and motion itself. And of course, the main subject: my son. ♥

An old cliché which is so true, kids grow so fast, you don´t even realise it. My children are used to seeing their mom draw, but I wanted to draw something especially for them, something to remember me by, when I´m long gone.  I picture them as adults, in their own home with their own family and a piece of their childhood memory created by their mother hanging on their wall. They would pass it every day, and someday they would stop and take a moment to look at it, swipe it gently, smile and remember that day at the beach and that their mommy loved them so much. (I speak in plural because I´m drawing a similar piece of work of my daughter, taken on that same day, at the same beach as this one.)

I´ve used a lot of pastel pencils and PanPastels, but for some reason I´ve been timid to use soft pastel? I´ve used them in backgrounds but never like this. Even before I started this painting I decided that I was going to use only them, soft pastel. I needed to see what I could do with them! I know there are über-talented artist that can create tiniest details with them, but I was going for a bit of a rougher look, time to be bold with my lines!

The minute I started I could see and feel they were perfect for the job! I was so pleased to see how easy it was to use Unison Colour soft pastels, they blend beautifully and colours are really rich. Now I need to increase my colour variety, the colours are so delicious it feels like going to candy-store! Big credit to these pre-selected sets that Unison Colour provides, my first purchase was Emma Colbert Animal Set, I found it very helpful. Brilliant way to help out beginners!

This painting/drawing I did with these pastels of my son, is my best one yet. I truly think so. I love the colours; they are so pure and bright. So glad I took this step, I feel I have developed as an artist. Thank you Unison Colour, looking forward with great enthusiasm how much more I can improve my art with you!

Ellu's finished pastel painting of her son jumping around at the beach.

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5 Responses

  1. Brilliant painting. Love the use of colors.I also started using graphite and color pencils and sometimes formthe big painting oil which I also love. It’s only when I discovered Unison that I started to use soft pastels. Love them.

    Your work is beautiful.

  2. I am 71, only did a few pencil sketches a year, too busy working and raising three kids singly. A couple years ago I did a sketch of my horse, a good friend and very good artist said,” Now finish it”. So she told me about blending sticks, etc. When I finished she raved,” That’s frameable!!” Got me excited!
    As I’ve always loved pastels, (tried at age 12), I bought a cheap set and started working with them, since now I’ve got time. Well, my friends saw, one paid me to do a picture of a dog. That was about two years ago. Now, I’ve several orders from my neighborhood, after posting some animals, etc. I also use pan pastels and pastel pencils.
    I recently heard about Unison, bought a set, which are stuck in a harbor somewhere! So I bought some from a local company, CAN’T WAIT to try them out! Hope they come today!!!

  3. (Translated)Great work by Ellie! The sun, air, childhood, joy, happiness are coolly conveyed!!! The colour scheme is beautiful, thanks to Unison for such pastels, for new masterpieces!

    (Original)Великолепная работа Элли! Классно переданы солнце, воздух, детство, радость, счастье!!! Цветовая гамма прекрасна, спасибо Юнисон за такую пастель, за новые шедевры!

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