Red Rock Pastel Society is society build by the members and is growing on member contributions. Today we want you to meet our member from Moscow. Russia - Irina Artamonova. I asked her to write this article about her passion in pastel portraits. Read up and check out her amazing gallery.
I started drawing people when I was a kid. Well it’s absolutely natural - what could be the most fascinating subject for a human being to draw than another human being?:)
These were “portraits” of my friends and relatives, imaginative people, copies of some old masterpieces. I drew every day passionately, yet due to my poor eyesight there wasn’t even a discussion of me studying art professionally…
Then there was a 20 years’ break in drawing – I studied and worked hard, moved to a big city, busy-busy life In 2014 I changed my routine completely, quitting an office job and getting back to my true self. First these were mandalas, doodles, Chinese calligraphy and ink painting and then - realistic rendering again. I tried lots of tools and themes but drawing people has always been a natural thing to me, even when I knew nothing about anatomy or proportions. So, five years down the road, I’m now a tutor in a fine arts school for adults, conducting classes on pastel portraiture. It’s a great challenge for me and a great reward: when you teach something you learn it better yourself. For any artist, studying is a never ending process, and I know I have a long way to go to come just a little step closer to my favorite masters of portraiture: Feshin, Sargent, Serov, Serebryakova, Repin and many more.
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