This week I visited the Catherine de Barnes Art Society in Solihull, to give them a demonstration of soft pastel drawing - and they proved to be a very appreciative audience.

My subject was a pair of mute swans and a cygnet on a lake, and I used a fairly limited palette of four or five colours to depict the birds and the rippling water.

My soft pastels are mostly by Unison, some Winsor & Newton, and the paper I use currently is Pastelmat by Clairefontaine, which I particularly like for its good gripping qualities.


I find depicting white birds really interesting, since they usually look every colour except white!
The reflected colours bounce back and forth between the birds and the surrounding water.