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To Blend Or Not To Blend Pastels, OR Why I Don’t!

Is it really December already? (Someone tell me no, it ain’t true!) Look out for my monthly picks next week. In the meantime, this week I made a video about why I don’t blend pastels. I frequently get asked the question – Gail do you blend your pastels? OR Gail why don’t you blend pastels?

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Painting an Eggplant: Gail Sibley, "Eggplant and Garlic," Mount Vision pastels on UArt 400 grit paper, 6 x 11 in

Painting An Eggplant And Garlic

I couldn’t decide what to paint for my next video demo until I saw a big beautiful eggplant (aubergine) in the market calling out to be painted! So I created a video on the complexities of painting an eggplant. Have a look.

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Pastels on black aper: Gail Sibley, "Untitled [at this point], Mount Vision pastels on Sansfix pastel card, 5 1/2 x 7 3/4 in

Using Pastels On Black Paper

Occasionally I get asked the question: Do you ever use soft pastels on black paper? And the answer is: Well no, I don’t. Mind you, when I first started in pastels over 20 years ago, I worked on a dark green mat board. So I have worked with pastels on dark paper, just not black

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IAPS – The Landscape Interviews

In my last post, I shared the first half of the interviews I made at the International Association of Pastel Societies (IAPS) in early June. Here is the second set – the landscape interviews I call them since they’re all related to painting the landscape. Let’s go!

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IAPS Interviews – Questions Answered!

I managed to persuade 10 artists at the International Association of Pastel Societies (IAPS) Convention to say a few words on video in answer to one question. This post will include half the IAPS interviews, the next, the rest. (One interview went way over the one-to-three minute mark and the story was so fascinating that I

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Using White Paper For Pastelling

I have done a few pastel demo videos now, all of them on toned Wallis paper. A question I’ve been asked is, Why don’t you use white paper? and What would the pastel painting look like on white paper? I have taken these questions to heart and decided to do a demo on white paper even

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The low key painting: Gail Sibley, "Peppers in a Bowl," Schminke pastels on Wallis paper, 6 x 6 in

What’s a Low Key Painting?

Talking about a low key painting seems appropriate at this, the darkest time of the year (in the northern hemisphere anyway!). So what is a low key painting? It’s one in which most of the colours are predominantly dark in value and often subdued (i.e. not bright colours). I’ve just uploaded a video of me

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Gail Sibley, "Two Daisies in a Vase," pastel, 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 in. An example of a high key painting

High Key Painting – What IS That??

I’ve just uploaded a video about high key painting and what it means. Have a look and let me know what you think. Here’s the set up I was painting. You can see the beige paper behind the daisies that I reference in the video. If you squint, you can see that the centre of

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Cleaning Soft Pastels – Check Out My Easy Method

  I don’t know about you but my pastels get miiiiighty dirty when I use them. Whether you wear gloves or not, every time you pick up a pastel, you transfer particles from the pastel you previously held to the new one. And so the pastels get dirtier and dirtier. Ugh I say. So, cleaning

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