The Empty Chair - Pastel

“The Empty Chair” is another pastel that was created in the slide room. You can read about the details of this creative process in the post Creating Inside and Out. I also have an acrylic version of this painting that I will showcase in the next couple of days.

The Empty Chair - Pastel © Diane Clancy

It is interesting to me to see the difference in images when I put them into different mediums. My teacher, Michael Coblyn, used to talk about how each time one takes an image and translates it to another medium, it is important to see it as a new painting.

He encouraged us to not get caught up in trying to duplicate the image but instead to look at it as a new creation. This thinking has been incredibly helpful to me as I have taken my paintings created in traditional mediums and translated them into digital paintings.

After I created this pastel, I took a good hard look at it - and it was very striking to me. That empty chair in the window is very poignant to me - it feels very lonesome. I was caught in just creating and then stepped back and feel that there is a lot of power in this image.

~ Diane Clancy