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| Kim Blair Artist, Poet, Tarot card reader |
Like so many artists, my interest in art began in childhood. It all started with crayons and a colouring book and has come full circle back to crayons!
Although I now use an expensive Swiss made crayon (instead of the Crayola brand from my childhood), they still have the same wonderful waxy texture.
My interest in portraiture probably first appeared at about the age of nine.
Most days after school, I could be found at the kitchen table, laboriously trying to replicate Charlie Brown and his friends from the comic strip, Peanuts, using Bristol board and poster paint.
About 5 years ago I started working seriously in portraiture.
Even though I discovered early on in my artist career, that the dust created while working with traditional pastel was not good for my health, I never lost my appreciation for the expressive potential of this medium. I began searching the internet for contemporary portrait artists who work with pastel.
This research led me to an artist whose work inspired me to rediscover a medium from my childhood…wax crayon.
I discovered the talented New York based artist, Fred Hatt, who uses wax pastel for his portraiture and life drawing. His unique work inspired me to experiment with the Swiss made, Caran d’Ache Neocolor II, water-soluble wax pastel that I already had in my studio, but was only using for abstract mixed media work. Remembering my childhood love of colouring, I soon realized I had found my perfect pastel... in wax, rather than chalk.
As I mentioned at the beginning, I have come full circle and am happy to say I have found my way back to the joy of crayons!
These highly pigmented Swiss crayons do not have the nostalgic scent of the crayons from my childhood, but I won’t hold that against them!
To find out more about me please see my blogger profile.