HORSE'S HEAD IN PASTEL by CATHERINE DUNN
The most noticeable feature of this demonstration was the
fact that Catherine obviously loves her subjects which range from horses to
dogs to sheep. She kept us highly amused with the tales of her experiences all
evening.
Her subject for the evening was an Arabian filly from the stable
of the Emir of Quatar.
The subject was
drawn first very lightly in pencil - pastel will not take over heavy graphite.
The paper used was Ingres pastel paper. For the background Catherine scraped
pastel into talc then rubbed the diluted pastel in with cotton wool.
The midtones were established and then the
dark areas carefully following the fall of the hair. Violet was used in the shadow areas and a
touch of pink added to sub-highlights. Eye detail came next and then the ridge
of the brow and nose marking the highlights with white. Catherine makes use of
Faber Castell and Conte pastel pencils
as well as colour shapers for detailed work. Rubbers are blue-tac or
Maped rubbers.
Eyes in animal portraits are perhaps the
most difficult features to paint. Catherine edged the eyes first with a dark
colour and then surrounded it with white. The eye socket was then shaded with a
very dark grey. The highlight was put in and surrounded by deep brown with a
touch of the very dark grey. A couple of dots of teal blue were put into the
top of the pupil and a touch of the same colour added to the upper and lower
lids. Finally the highlight was intensified with very white pastel.
Catherine told us she takes about 80 photographs of each subject and
prefers to take pictures of horses in bright sunlight and dogs in shade. She
picks the best dozen or so to use as references for her paintings.
The evening finished
with a big round of applause to thank Catherine for a very informative and
highly entertaining evening!
