It snowed just two days ago. And the wind blew mightily. People were outside and were putting litter into garbage bags to celebrate Earth Day, but the litter blew around. And everything blew around. So I felt inspired to create this picture in pan pastels of a snowflake surrounded by color and swirling winds. The paper that I made this picture on is black and has the weight of card stock, rather than paper.
I have to say that, when I first started trying to use pan pastels, I really didn’t like them. I felt that I had no control over where the colors went and that they smudged a little bit too easily and that they felt dusty. But today, pan pastels felt like a friend. They felt like they were just what I needed to convey the image of out-of-season snow and swirly winds.
Have you ever found that something you couldn’t control was exactly what you needed?
I love the colours around the snowflake. We don’t see snowflakes in my part of Australia, but I love seeing them when I travel.
My life has been a bit random, seemingly controlled by something I have no control over, but I’ve loved every minute of it.
Even the sad parts nearly always ended up having a silver lining, eventually.