Recently I took an online class, “Still Life the Colourful Way,” with Charlotte Herczfeld, a Swedish pastelist with an amazing mastery of color.
Charlotte studied with Susan Sarbach, who you may know as the author of Capturing Radiant Light & Color in Oils and Pastels. Susan also studied with Henry Hensche, who developed the Colorist approach to painting.
Colorist artists produce incredibly vibrant, color-drenched paintings. These are the types of paintings that have always fascinated me—they look true to color, but are brighter than real life, imparting a magical feeling that the world is a richer, more beautiful place than we can see in our day-to-day lives.
My years as a colored pencil artist taught me to see all the colors that were there: the shadow colors, reflected colors, and highlight colors, so I wasn’t a complete duffer when I started the course. All the same, I wasn’t prepared for yet another quantum leap in perception.
Charlotte taught me to see the colors that aren’t there. To find, and then heighten, each subtle hue to give as much oomph to the painting as I realistically could.
After her course, I can’t help but look at objects like my muted tan and gray bedspread and see it as a Colorist would, in blues, oranges, golds and lemon yellows.
If you haven’t tried a painting using the Colorist method yet, keep reading for a brief explanation of the stages involved. Rather than paraphrase Charlotte’s excellent instructions, I’ll use my own words and illustrating it with one of my pastel paintings.
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Read the rest of the article and watch Robert Sloan's demo by clicking here
