Kashkul Final

Kashkul © Niall O'Neill

Last November I stopped posting on the development of this painting as another took priority. However, I finished it recently, and this is it framed. A kashkul is an Indian begging bowl, possibly endemic to Kashmir. The fruits are Cape gooseberries (Physalis peruviana)

I will take you back to where I left off in the next image.

The effect of adding the background is stark and immediate. It allows me to judge values, and to begin to think about reflections. The background is not black, but a melange of Sennelier dark green and dark blue, spread and integrated with the palm of the hand - a dirty business to be sure.

Final adjustments are made to the depth of the contrast. The physalis berries were all revisited, as were the leaf lights, with pastels from the very soft Blue Earth range, all the berry and leaf colours coming their related lemon and yellow ranges respectively, giving an instant harmony to the piece.

Pitcher and crinodendron

This is another painting in my "pitcher" series; this time posed on a chinese hardwood stand, with a spray of Crinodendron hookerianum. The initial sketch is on sand-coloured Pastelmat.

This is the beginning of the block-in. At the same time the dark background is developed in a mix of Sennelier dark blue and dark green - and I'm running out of these pastels. I must order some more!

The crinodendron flowers are a rich red - in the blue-red bias on the colour wheel, not in the orange-red bias. I used quite a selection of tints and shades to get as realistic a rendering as possible. This included Sennelier and Schminke rose madders, madder lake and Bordeaux red, and Caran d'Ache and Derwent pastel pencils. The Chinese stand has my reliable Carbothello pencils and the very soft Blue Earth yellow series, which has some very rich browns in the darkest shades.

I did add some touches on the pitcher after this was photographed, but it's close enough to the finished painting. Finished size 16x12 ins, 40 x 30 cms.

© Niall O'Neill

Camellia tea

Tea is processed from the leaves of a species of camellia. The tea species is not nearly as decorative as the varieties cultivated for garden display, but that's no reason for not inventing a link in this painting. The tray cloth was embroidered by my good friend and neighbour Odette Bougouin. As usual the support is Clairefontaine's Pastelmat, 15.5 x 12 ins or 40 x 30 cms,

This is the initial sketch blocked in roughly with a view to seeing values and hues.

Initial shading on teapot, and red hues including carmine and madder lake picking out the blossoms.

I usually like to see the background at an early stage to get an idea of the extremes of contrast, but not so much that it will get in the way of the subject and dirty the lighter colours.

With the camellias defined, and the dark green leaves, I started to shade in the traycloth over the underlying colours that are never entirely blotted out. The pastels here were initially the warm Schminke greys.

The cloth is getting some shadows laid in, and shades from Blue Earth yellow range are modifying the greys.

This is just the background shading filled in, in a mix of Rembrandt and Sennelier black, and Girault dark green, blended together.  I went back in to the blue pattern on the teapot and refined it, after further darkening the shaded areas on the porcelain.

The base of the pot is done. Shading of the cloth is finalised, and the details of the embroidery and lace edge added in palest grey and a little white pastel pencil that is less white than the Sennelier white highlights on the porcelain. It just needs to be signed when it has rested for a while.

Pastels from the Met

Dirge of the Three Queens - Edwin Austin Abbey - 29 x 45 ins

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has an extensive online library that may be freely downloaded in pdf format. One book that will interest all pastellists is American Pastels in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There are pastels - and artists - in the collection that are old friends, including Dégas and Mary Cassatt; and some who are entirely new to me. Among these is Edwin Austin Abbey, who painted Dirge of the Three Queens featured above. Go to the website, get the book - it's free!

Japanese quince final

This is the finished pastel of Chaenomeles japonica. I added the reflections, which were absolutely necessary to ground the painting (compare the most recent unfinished stage); some highlights; some detail on the vase; and I darkened the shadow side of the vase where it fades into the dark.
I also scumbled some Roché blue into the top left and right of the background to emphasise the complements.
I wondered about calling this piece Crouching Tiger?

“Chaenomeles japonica” © Niall O’Neill 

Japanese Quince

Last spring I collected a spring of Chaenomeles japonica (Japanese Quince) from a local hedgerow with the intention of painting it. I set it up in a simple Chinese bowl on a black glass table, and lit it from the left side.
My first picture is the base drawing in a few basic colours that focus on value over hue.

The support is grey Pastelmat. In the next image I have scumbled in some more even colour on the pot and started on the flowers with a range of orange reds, mostly Sennelier, but with a Schminke or two and a red Roché in there as well.

There follows more definition on the pot - Schminke again; I am working from top to bottom and from left to right.

Now the pot detail is nearing completion and I have started to work on the leaves - pastels here are Rembrandt and Sennelier. I have started to scumble in the background with dark blue Sennelier, which will nicely complement the oranges in the flowers and the pot too.

Here the painting is nearing completion, with the flowers, leaves, stems and background nearly finished. The top half of the background is now dark blue and dark green (Sennelier); the bottom half is a mix of dark grey and black shades.

All that is left is to add the reflections on the table to place the set-up in space, and to add a few corrections and highlights. I will put the finished piece in the next post. Very soon...

Evolution of an idea

This is a post about how a relatively simple idea evolved into a more finished piece.
Having painted a number of still life pastels featuring brass objects, I was looking for something made of copper when I came upon an old army bugle in a brocante in France. It is not in fact French, but bears the badge of the Argyll and Sutherland regiment.
I intended to paint it on its own, with perhaps a tasselled cord wrapped around it like it might originally have worn. But I didn't have one, so I put it in a wooden box (a wine case), put an antique brass candlestick beside it, stuck in a candle, and hung an old watch from the bugle. I was going to call the piece Reveille. The image shows the main features roughed in. Around the time I was painting this Poppy Day happened, so I bought one and painted it in to add a note of colour in an otherwise ochre work.

The addition of the poppy got me thinking about the First World War, since its centenary is this year. The time on the watch is barely legible, but it might be 5.30; and the painting has progressed, apart from the base of the candleholder. (The colour of the background has not changed, it is a result of the lighting conditions when I took the photo).

I developed this idea further, and extinguished the candle, leaving a little smoke behind. This could be read simply as the candle having been blown out by the bugler as he rose to blow reveille.

I finished the piece like this; got it framed; but asked the framer not to seal the frame as I was not satisfied - something was lacking. I eventually decided that the candle and the box were too discrete, and thought I might link them. World War I was still in my head, and I began to think that the candle was a symbol for the lights going out all over Europe; and the wooden box could be read as a more sombre receptacle. A book seemed right as a link, both because of its shape and size - it would fit the space; and because the title of the work could assume the title of the book. Erich Maria Remarque's classic title won out over Edmund Blunden's Overtones of War; or Robert Grave's Goodbye to All That. I used an old book spine in my library, but searched online for an illustration of an old copy of All Quiet on the Western Front. Putnam's edition suited perfectly; although I altered the binding to fit the colour scheme of the painting, I used the font on the cover to maintain the historical verisimilitude. This is the result. 

“All Quiet…” © Niall O’Neill