Ellouise Theron

Australian Capital Territory, Australia, Early Morning, pastel, 53 x 74 cm (21 x 29")

My Inspiration

I grew up amongst and painting the spectacular wildlife of Africa. This is still my first love. Now living in Australia I discovered the extraordinary richness of its birdlife. I am fortunate enough to live in a suburb which is adjacent to a nature reserve and also has a number of ponds. I often encounter the Pacific black cucks on my early morning run. Although lacking the spectacular colours of the rosellas or lorikeets the startling shimmer of green amongst the otherwise dull brown plumage fascinated me and just begged to be painted.

My Design Strategy

In this painting I focused on creating a visually strong and interesting composition that captures a singular moment. The diagonal water ripples helped to create movement and the cool blues of the water helped to offset the warm reds and browns of the duck. Allowing the duck to swim into the picture drew the eye in while at the same time creating a measure of tension and drama as it crosses the diagonal water ripples. Darkening the top half of the painting adds to the drama and helped the water to recede and the duck to come forward.

My Working Process

When I work in pastel I always work layer by layer, top to bottom, back to front and hard to soft. With this in mind I drew the duck in pastel pencil directly onto textured pastel paper. I then did an underpainting with a dark pastel ensuring my darkest values are accurate. This layer was sprayed with a fixative to prevent interference with subsequent layers. I then did the water using soft pastels. Using the hard pastel pencils I layered in the medium values and eventually the light values in the duck and reflection. In the final stages I used soft pastels over the hard pencils to deepen the colour and finished the details with black carbon and white charcoal pencils.

Contact Details

» Email: ellouise@iafrica.com

» Website: www.ellouisetheronart.com