Tag Archives: onions

Off to a flying start with onion pastels

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I promised myself to christen my new pastel workstation by - well - doing a pastel!

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So here it is - done whilst still in my dressing gown early this morning.I love using UNISON soft pastels - they are the business although I also love Sennelier and Schminke soft pastels too - they are pure compressed pigment with no binder so the colours last forever and don’t fade! The paper is Canson pastel paper although I love Art Spectrum Colourfix paper too.

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I know they aren’t fab but I enjoyed just having a go in pastel. Soon I will reach for my old friend watercolour and hopefully do them justice.

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Fresh Out of Forde Abbey

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Forde Abbey, Somerset, England

Last July I had a lovely day trip by coach to Forde Abbey in Somerset.

My onion - drawn on cotton rag paper in pencil showing strong shadows that suggest the summer sun

A rural idyll, this abbey was once a monastery but has had many changes made to its architecture which have resulted in a beautiful English stately home and gardens - open to the public.

Onions growing in the kitchen gardens

I was drawn to the simplicity and beauty of the abbey gardens and its well-tended vegetable plots and Victorian white-wood greenhouse flanked on all sides by riotous rose gardens and herbaceous borders. The sun warmed my back all day and lit the flowers and leaves with a gorgeous light that had me snapping photos at every turn.

Hollyhocks against a Victorian brick wall

Here I present two simple sketches. One of a huge onion sitting its hefty weight in the rich soil, and a hollyhock - reaching upwards as it unfurled pale yellow papery flowers.

A small hollyhock study I did in pencil

I have many more images and hours of fun to go as I decide which to cull and which to experiment with over the coming weeks.

I came away from Forde having spent ages wandering the nursery where I bought some tall floaty flowers and smelled many more!