Old shop, Punta Arenas Chile

Punta Arenas is a mix of solid, established buildings that of the sort that would grace any European city, and more ramshackle affairs that lend a real frontier feel to the place. A lot of tin sheets and peeling timber boards make for a wealth of interesting subjects. This is a small pastel sketch of one of these:

Off the coast of South Georgia

A qck pastel sketch this time, of a section of the coast near gold harbour (north east corner of the island, not far from drygalski fjord). I'm finding it quite a challenge to get the subtle snow tones in pastel, but enjoying working with the medium, and I hope to progress to some larger pastel works.

barracks, Grytviken

it's been a long time since I last posted on this blog, but I've been trying out pastels so I thought I would upload a quick sketch I did of the barracks at Grytviken. It's quite an impressive building, sadly in a poor state of repair, but separate from the other buildings and therefore quite easy to isolate in a picture.
Pastels are quite fun, I'm finding, and great for an impressionistic approach. Detail is very difficult to achieve, so I'm forced to concentrate on the bigger shapes. With a very limited range of colours, I'm also having to revert to colour mixing theory to get the subtle greys etc. that are much easier to achieve with watercolour. I would love a comprehensive range of sennelier colours, but I'm afraid they will break the bank, so will have to make do with what I have.