Artist Page Samis Has Interview About Pastel Painting..
August 12th, 2014 - West Vancouver, BC
Phone call from New York for Interview...July 2014
Magazine Outdoor Painter.com - written by editor Mr. Bob Bahr from New York USA
Page Samis approached a plein air painting with an unusual goal: paint in pastels on black paper using 50 or fewer strokes.
One would think the idea for this exercise would be to keep it simple, with the black forcing the artist to use a lot of the strokes just to cover the paper. Samis says that's not so — the black paper was purely an aesthetic choice. "I wasn't afraid of the black," says Samis. "I let some of it breathe; I didn't cover over all of it. I was trying to make it a gentle piece.
The beach scene she depicted, which is in the Vancouver area in Canada, presented another challenge for Samis: It was very windy. Samis says she limited the number of pastel sticks to just a few to keep things simple. "I held the pastels up to the scene to match the colors," she says. "Then I did just one stroke. I was keeping track of how many strokes I had made with little ticks on the side of the paper. As usual, I didn't touch it once I brought the painting home. I had only worked on black paper once before."