Playing With New Tools

I’ve been doing a lot of “trying things out” recently, partly because of the new collaboration with Hahnemühle Paper. New tools (in this case a couple of new surfaces) always invite experimentation. I learn what the tools can do that I’ve not been able to do before–or in a way that wasn’t previously possible.

For me, it’s like picking up a guitar that I’ve never played before. Even the more familiar pieces suddenly sound and feel different coming out of the instrument. If it’s an acoustic, it will have a tone, resonance and harmonic character that are unique to the combination of wood, shape and construction method. An electric guitar will have those as well, in different measure, and it will also have different pickups, electronics, and perhaps a whammy bar to play with. All of these things immediately inspire different creative ideas. Sometimes the techniques that worked on another instrument will not work the same on this one, but there might be others that I’d not been able to accomplish before–or that I had not thought of before.

I’ve been working with Jack Richeson’s much softer pastels since I picked up a set of 40 at the International Association of Pastel Societies (IAPS) conference back in June. I also had my first contact with Hahnemühle Paper there. I’ve started to get a good handle on what each of them does–at least in my hands–and it’s been exciting to see what comes out of that work.

The piece, above, was the result of a 1.75 hour play session in which I tried some techniques I’ve used with other media, such as mimicking the “lifting” one can do with acrylic/alkyd paint, accentuating different shapes suggested by a ghost image. The character of the Collection Sketch paper allowed me to get better results in pastels than I’ve had on any other surface.

Cool Offer!

By the way, Hahnemühle USA has graciously offered free samples of their papers to anyone who emails their (U.S.-only) mailing address to USAArtists@hahnemuehle.com and mentions Mark Ivan Cole. They’ll send a 6×9″ sheet of each of the following:

Collection Ingres -100gsm
Collection Sketch -140gsm
Pastel Velour

Play around with these new tools and let me know what you do with your samples!

@Hahnemuehle_global
@Boss_Carol