OHNSON takes a methodical, inquisitive approach to her art
practice, a tendency that began in childhood.
“Even as a kid I was always drawing, pencil, charcoal, what-ever
52
WBM december 2017
I could, and I loved it,” she says. “But it wasn’t something
that was considered a serious course of study in college, so it
was just a hobby. Instead, I earned a B.A. and M.A. in foreign
language education. Later I tried acrylics and then watercol-ors,
when my girls were small. But I got busy with parenthood and had to put
art away for a while.”
A little more than a year ago, Johnson again felt a familiar pull to create
art. She purchased a selection of art supplies to reconnect with her passion.
Included in that purchase was a set of 12 soft pastels.
“I fell head-over-heels, obsessed really, as my family can attest, and it’s all
I want to do when I grow up,” she chuckles. “It was so comfortable, it felt like
being a little kid again and coloring. And it felt so much more natural to draw
than to have a brush in my hand.”
Johnson developed a painting process that allows her to expand her cre-ative
potential while honing her fundamental skill. She regularly challenges
herself to experiment with a variety of techniques and draws inspiration from
contemporary pastel artists through research and networking.
An avid and lifelong photographer, she often develops compositions from
her photos.
“I do a lot of planning before I start a piece,” she says. “I have always been
a big photographer. I love nature and love to take pictures, so I take them
everywhere I go. When I see something that catches my eye, I will often play
around with editing the photograph, manipulating color saturation, crop-ping,
and trying to be creative with them. Then I take that reference and turn
it into a piece of art, changing and adding even more. Before setting pastel to
paper, I will also think about composition, value, colors from the color wheel,
size and paper.”
Unlike oil pastels, which contain a significant amount of binder giving
them a waxy, paint-like texture, soft pastels are dry, blending easily with one
another and requiring a rough, textured surface to adhere to. That makes
paper type and color particularly important.
Due to the fine, chalky consistency of the medium, pastel paper has a sur-face
texture that allows the pigment particles to adhere in varying degrees,
depending on the grain. While many pastel painters will still utilize under-painting
for their pieces, others like Johnson use these colored papers for a
similar effect.
“There are various kinds of pastel paper,” she says. “They have sanded
surfaces which hold the particles and lend themselves to layers of colors,
whether or not you’re blending. The papers come in a great variety of color
— black to white and everything in between. Some pastel artists will paint
a background color, but I like to start with colored paper, perhaps because
I’m impatient and want to get to the nuts and bolts. The colors of the paper
enhance the mood of the painting, bringing out different tones and quali-ties
of the colors you lay over; interesting things happen.”
In “Red Hot Summer,” Johnson experiments with using several sheets of
paper at once. The piece depicts a warm, vibrant array of flowers viewed
from above. The artist keeps her lines loose and gestural, and populates the
image with bright reds and purples. The effect is a passionate, lively mood.
Reflections, 26 x 18 inches, pastel on aubergine sanded paper.
Autumn at Airlie, 18 x 14 inches, pastel on various colors of torn
sanded paper adhered to board.
J