I have been travelling quite a lot recently, so I haven’t had time to write here; however today I managed to write a little and catch up with the contents of my mailbox (well most of it!).

I was delighted to receive the latest copy of The Pastel Journal. Always a great read! I was particularly looking forward to this issue as I knew that our friend, master pastelist Sydney McGinley, was going to be featured in an article about portrait and figurative painters. Her painting “Footbath No.1” is also featured on the front cover.

Sydney’s work is featured in “Portraits from the heart” in the Pastel Journal.

Sydney lives near us in Pennsylvania and was one of the first artists to begin using PanPastel. And she uses them beautifully, in combination with pastel sticks & a Conté pencil on Wallis sanded paper.

I love her use of color! I know that mark-making is very important to her, and in the Pastel Journal article she talks about how she also likes to include drawing as a strong element within her paintings. She has told me in the past that she likes that PanPastel can also be applied in semi-transparent layers, allowing the pencil marks to show through if she desires.

More of Sydney’s paintings can be found at the PanPastel webgallery page and at her website: SydneyMcGinley.com

I’ll be writing more about Sydney soon, as she has kindly agreed to do an interview for PaintDrawBlend.com