This chalk pastel piece was completed as Clarence Esplanade was one of my favourite places to go for a walk when I lived in Portsmouth. The seafront in Portsmouth isn’t like most coastal towns and cities. Portsmouth doesn’t have the traditional b&bs and seaside attractions that you often see in places like Bognor Regis, Bournemouth, and Blackpool.
Again, lockdown, made me think of places I liked to be which was the reason for completing this piece.
The composition of the piece is out for this creation. South Parade Pier is the focus of the creation but the bus shelter seating pod and the lamp are far smaller than they would be in the real world. However, this was my third creation since picking the hobby up and it was something I was keen to learn – getting good composition.
The piece is done with bold chalk pastel colours for the foliage, esplanade path, beach, and pier structure. Blending was used for the sky to create a soft light colour and then the same technique was used for the windows on the pier building. Further, the fine-line marker was used to add details to the structure of the pier building bringing out more of the architectural style of the building. The birds in the sky were created with simple black chalk pastel.
This blog post is available in audio as a podcast and can be found here: South Parade Pier, Southsea audio
Artwork in Progress 