Lucia Smith

PastelLandscapesPainting
Written By Cat Barrett

I paint the Yorkshire Moors and Dales in the gorgeous medium of soft pastel – how lucky I am to live and work here. Growing up in Ilkley, and returning here with my family in 1993 I love looking out at Ilkley Moor from my home studio; I use the local moors as a place to walk, a place to think. They have a timelessness, a hugeness, a reassuring solidity; time here always seems to rebalance and rejuvenate; it is the only place I know where I can be simultaneously soothed and uplifted.

Taking an eclectic mix of short art courses whilst in Australia in the 1980s, I found soft pastels whilst studying portraiture and was immediately hooked. They are so vivid, easy to manipulate, and forgiving! I realised the techniques I was learning would be marvellous in landscape painting, so I set out to explore, evolving my own way of doing things along the way.

Each painting usually starts with an ‘aha!’ moment on a walk. I then seek the essence of the view, choosing light and shadow to pin down the feeling of being there. Although the result is a static painting, I work hard to offer movement in a scene. Hard and soft edges of colour suggest that the wind is blowing, the clouds and shadows are about to move, and the view holds our gaze as we wait for the scene to entertain us.

Recently I finished a quest to explore and paint all the named Dales of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, a wonderfully affirming project which pushed my walking boots and my creativity to the max. What a challenge; I finished with 52 paintings of 49 Dales; they are all available to view on my website. In this crazy, busy, complicated, and often exhausting world, the Dales and the Moors are a place to be, a place to look, a place to breathe. I hope to share a taste of this, available to view in a painting on a wall.

Cat Barrett
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