Pans Can Fly

Here are some pears with my new PanPastels! I had always thought of these with a bit of suspicion, since the whole technique -- application with foam pads -- seemed (to me) to demand or force blending blandness. I was inspired to reconsider when a colleague who needed to get her looseness back decided to do a series of paintings using the pans! Whoa! If she chose this medium and these tools to get loose then it was time for me to take a look.

I ordered the Landscape set, which has some oddball colors in it. It is a 20-pan subset of the now-up-to 80 pan full set. Q: do I need the full set? Can I stay loose with these? They really are fun.

In any event, this pear piece is about 6" x 8" on that nifty Japanese print paper. The underpainting is shown here, done in watercolors and gouache, sealed with clear Colourfix primer. I used about four layers of pan pastels, layered with my new casein fixative, which seems just fine. In some cases the fixative goes on really thick and wet, which I like.

You can make fine marks with the pans and pads, but I wasn't getting them chunky enough for some areas where I needed heft, so chose to do the pear stems (and some other spots here and there) with regular very soft sticks. In the case of the stems, with a new color for me -- Schmincke Quin Violet -- a real fat strong red burgundy. Nice color!