Pastel Pieces

When I first started taking an interest in art the media that appealed to me the most were pastels. For most people (including myself then), the pastels they know of were the oil pastels or crayons that they used in school. These pastels are actually a relative newcomer to the pastel family.

The traditional pastels (known as soft pastels) do not contain oil as binder for the pigments, but rather dry materials like gum and chalk. This makes them brittle and dusty to use, but in exchange you get really vivid "colours flowing from your fingers" as I like to say. I first came across them in the books about drawing techniques, then later when I was in Malacca on a family holiday I saw a box of soft pastels in the store and bought it out of curiosity. I'm real glad I did!

Painting on t-shirts was something that developed later on for me. It came about during a trip to Art Friend when I saw a box of fabric pastels...and later I moved on to fabric paints because they opened up many more design possibilities. T-shirts are a great medium to reach out to people because everyone and anyone can wear them!

So that's the story of my journey with art so far. I really believe it's not some special talent or anything (for the stuff I've created)- you just need patience, good library books and a good imagination. Because up till last year I was under the impression that I was hopeless in "art" (never could draw more than stickmen). But I think that's a misconception that many people have of themselves too.

My 3 latest pastel pieces were done for a design-an-ad competition where the prize is a camera that I really like (the Panasonic GF1) and you can see them with this link

http://sixrocket.com/MIKE/portfolio

under the "defy convention" folder. That was the given theme for the ads and I'm hoping I'll win! ^_^ That will be amazing because there are some very strong entries by other people.

Okay hope you have enjoyed looking at my work and also hope you'll discover that art is something that anyone can do!

Mike