That’s advice rather than a statement. It will lift your spirits to draw on a cold wet day which is very much what its been here today. Happy memories of this view from just outside Painswick looking towards the River Severn a silver line in the distance, probably a little exagerated in this coloured up print. Pastels make this very quick to colour up but as I recall it was a very bright summer day when the original view was photographed. Did I refer to the original photograph to do the final colouring? No. I did not want the truth of the photo to get in the way of a feeling. If there is any truth in a photograph. Ooops! sounds like some art bollocks philosophy rearing its pretentious head. Prentetious? Moi?

I plan to do a very much bigger version of this in the future so one could almost call this a rough.

Colouring in pastel can be a messy business with the dusty stuff going everywhere, making one unpopular with the house proud and necessitating the frequent washing of hand, as I do more wiping and pushing the pastel around with my fingers and hands than holding and drawing. One should be careful not to be tempted to wipe the hands on the trousers as you’ll end up with ‘chalky trouser’, not a condition you’d ever want to have. One small interesting fact, I’ve had these pastels since the 1970s. They’ve been occasionally topped up with new ones here and there. Especially the white as I tend to lay that down a lot before putting other colours on there, but most of them are the original set. I used them back then to tighten colour on visuals when I worked as a freelance visualiser in advertising. I’d lay down colour with magic marker, this was in the days when magic markers came in a small glass bottle with a wad of colour inside, so one could take out the wad and put down a vast area of colour in a few sweeps. Dried instantly, though breathing was not recommended, as the fumes from these little beasts could probably kill any wandering wasp. Best applied with the window open. Then add a little pastel here and there to get the final effect.

Magic markers soon became the victim of health and safety, so one could not get inside them, and probably just as well. I gave them up some years ago. Pastels, apart from ‘chalky trouser’ are really quite harmless.