Bob Palmerton

Eastbound Trail, Drawing, Pastels on Pastel Sandpaper

2021

A New Session This reclining nude is completed two days after the last model session I held at my studio. Being the first drawing I completed after July’s session means last month’s drawing has not been completed yet. This one was relatively easy though. It comprises a fairly simple composition with no technical or compositionary challenges. I could focus on soft skin textures and folds in the sheets. First I made a rough estimation of the composition in charcoal. I worked it out with Conté pastel pencils (black and white) later. Relax Baby! After the completion of my colored pencil drawing ‘Leiden – Herengracht – 14-09-21’ I was in the mood for some simple stuff, nothing fancy. So I had her take a comfortable position, reading a book on paradoxes I bought a couple of weeks ago at the Groninger Museum. I like these talks with my model because it both makes us relax and somehow this relaxation speaks through the musculature in her back. I tried to capture that and I think I got away with it. Moreover, the bond between artist and model is important and when the right chemistry is there, magic can happen. Materials Completely coincidental the first thing I pulled out of the bag of drawing paper was a block of Strathmore Toned Gray. In my pencil and pastel case I found an old charcoal holder. Perfect for a session on the bed with me sketching on the bedside. When I come to think of it, the best model sessions are improvised, not fixated on too many poses. It can cramp both model and artist. The iPad Pro...

Heater Troubles This pastel drawing ‘Model Session – 20-04-24 – 1’ is the first I made during this month’s session. Last time we had a man posing for us. This time there...

Inspired by a hike on the Trail of Cedars at Glacier National Park. :: Drawing :: Realism :: This piece comes with an official certificate of authenticity signed by the artist :: Rea...

Award winner at the Chicago Pastel Painters Bi-annual National Juried Exhibit at the McCord Gallery in Palos Park, IL., October 2021. The McCord Gallery featured Winter's Breath on t...

pastel on paper I became interested in landscape painting because there were no confines, except the edge of the paper and an ever-changing display of color, rhythm, and texture outside my front door. Landscape painting is a method that expresses my inner response to and reverent feelings for nature. I look for connections between things—how one color flows into another, forms engage and separate, how one point in space influences another. The changes focused along the horizon are constant; they are governed by the seasons, the weather, or the cyclical nature of the agrarian landscape. There are no grand gestures, just subtle variations that, when combined, create a certain splendor. I convey in my paintings what is most pleasurable to me, such as discovering tenuous beauty in spontaneous cloud formations, and the repetition of endless corn and soybean rows captured on a rolling landscape. The process begins with a "drive-by-shooting" and a sketchbook. I make large pastel paintings...

Master portrait artist and illustration legend Bob Peak captures the likeness, dignity and essence of Saudi Arabia's King Faisal for Time Magazine Cover ...

This black and white charcoal and pastel painting features a Burmese temple landscape. Rising from clouds of gnarled trees, the temple’s triangular shape thins to a pointed dome, wit...

At the center of this large-scale black and white charcoal and pastel painting, a diver launches himself from untold heights, frozen at the peak of action against an ecstatic plume of clouds. Zalopany excels at painting with light, often abstracting areas of a composition with explosions of brush strokes and impossibly smooth blending. The cloud mass at the center of Diver is at once a liquid pool and O’Keefe’s Jimson Weed...