A BIG New Oil Pastel

Summer Night  ©Kesler Woodward 2018  oil pastel on paper 36" x 60"

I love working with oil pastels. The first real work of art I ever made was done in oil pastels. I came to art late--as a sophomore in college. I dropped in on a painting class my future wife Missy was taking, working outdoors on the beautiful Davidson College campus. The remarkable artist-teacher who became my mentor, Herb Jackson, noted my interest and gave me a set of Cray-Pas oil pastels and a large sheet of paper affixed to a drawing board, and he suggested I make art with them. It changed my life. I sat on the ground that day and made a loose, painterly image of...trees....the magnificent, ancient oaks that adorned the stately campus lawn.

Iceberg, Hubbard Glacier ©Kesler Woodward 2002  oil pastel on paper  27" x 39"

I've used oil pastels regularly ever since. When I moved from the Southeast Alaska rainforest of Juneau to the dry Alaskan Interior of Fairbanks 37 years ago, I went into the woods with my oil pastels to explore what I had to say about the boreal forest. When I was Expedition Artist for a voyage in 2001, retracing the last great exploring expedition to Alaska--the Harriman Expedition of 1899--I took oil pastels to explore the seas, glaciers, beaches, forests, and mountains that an extraordinary group of scientists, writers and I stopped and visited along the Alaska and Siberia coasts for 30 days. I made small oil pastels on that trip, and big oil pastel paintings in the studio when I came home. I've also done a number of big, 4-times life-size portraits of some of my dearest friends and family, and of a few others, in oil pastels as well.

I never know until I go into the studio to start a new painting what I will do next, but a couple of weeks ago I decided I wanted to do a REALLY BIG oil pastel, so I got out the roll of beautiful, heavyweight archival paper I recently purchased for just such a purpose, stretched a 3 ft. by 5 ft. piece of it on the painting wall in my studio, and went to work. I seldom paint the summer forest, generally preferring the  ephemeral light of winter, but this summer I've been very attuned to the just-as-magic subarctic summer light on the treetops in the late evening, and I decided to tackle this view of it just outside my studio door.

I had no idea, when I started, how complicated and time-consuming trying to capture the light on the trunks and the dense summer leaves that so inspired me would be. At that scale, it became a marathon of tiny, layered marks and built-up surfaces. I may not make another large oil pastel for years, and may never make another one this big, but it was worth it.

 

 

Below, a few of some of my other large (but not nearly so large as this one) oil pastels from the "Harriman Alaska Expedition Retraced":

Glacier Portrait (Glacier Bay)   ©Kesler Woodward 2002   oil pastel on paper    27" x 39" 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exit Glacier, near Seward ©Kesler Woodward 2002  oil pastel on paper  27" x 39"

 

 

 

 

 

 

Knight Island Forest ©Kesler Woodward 2002  oil pastel on paper  27" x 39"

 

Comments

[Kes Woodward]

Thank you so much! I'm sorry, but I can't remember the brand, or even from where I ordered the roll of paper on which I did the big, 3' x 5' oil pastel, and I no longer have the tube it came in. I still have quite a bit of the 36" wide roll I purchased, and it's beautiful stuff. Fairly heavyweight, with just enough texture to accept the oil pastel well, and a slightly creamy color. It's similar in weight and texture to the big sheets of Copperplate Deluxe printmaking paper on which I've done most of my other large oil pastels.

[Maria Merlino]

Your drawings are gorgeous! What kind of heavyweight, archival paper do you use? I’d like to do some large oil pastel drawings myself and am overwhelmed by all the options. Thank you!

[Kes Woodward]

Thank you, Taylor!

[Taylor Stinebaugh]

Kes, the Summer Night is stunning!