Chickadee

framed dimension: 12 x 14 in.

Daniel is an associate artist and clinician to Unison Color of Northumberland, England, maker of the worlds finest handmade pastels. Daniel has his own signature lines that are available worldwide in sets of 72, 36 and 18.

It is important to understand, pastels are not chalk, its a popular misconception, there is no chalk in them whatsoever. What they are is the purist of powdered pigments bound together with a small amount of binder, often gum arabic.

Daniel uses these raw pigments in a painterly manner smoothing and blending colors on the surface, in some cases there can be as many as 9 layers of color applied to achieve certain desired effects.

Pastels are applied over a ground support. In Daniel’s work there are no commercial surfaces used, he makes his supports using a variety of materials, for the textured surface a liquid ground is applied in varying layers depending on the desired effect he may look to achieve in a certain work.

Very fine handmade pastels such as the ones Daniel uses are lightfast and are some of the richest pigments available in soft pastels today, each pastel he uses is hand rolled one at a time and baked into its dry stick form. The immediacy of pastels and their vibrant outcomes are two of the reasons this medium features heavily in his work.