For this article we went to the Swinton's Research & Development Team. Deep in our secret underground facility we gave the white lab coat and goggles to Duane Hendricks. His mission: to test the new Canson Touch Sanded Pastel Paper with the Unison Pastels.

All kidding aside. Along with the likes of Horace Champagne and Susan Woolgar (demo), Duane is one of Canada's most accomplished pastelists and he has offered his skill to give us a review of Canson's new addition to the paper world, Mi-Teintes Touch Sanded Texture Board.

Duane Hendricks demonstrates...

Be it monsters under the bed or skeletons in the closet, for any artist there is nothing is quite as frightening and intimidating as staring at a blank sheet of paper or the vastness of an empty canvas. Since the day I read Painting as a Pass Time I have always agreed with Winston Churchill's analogy that painting is just like War. "To fight. To go into battle against multiple forces. And to go into combat one must be prepared."

1. Focal Point: Choose one! The hardest part about painting is the vast buffet of visual stimuli Mother Nature puts out before you. Whether you are outdoors, painting a still life or using a photo you need to simplify thing so you don’t get over whelmed. If you are getting confused then most certainly the viewer will be confused. If you start by saying “my painting is about the barn and the cows and the tree, oh and for sure the puffy cloud and the fence… too much information!!!! Think is my painting going to be about the foreground, the middle ground or the background/ sky. One of these needs to be dominate and be a dominant shape.

Something happened the other day while I was painting.  It has happened before.  It’s happened many times before, but this time I decided I would write down all the things that led up to the event and how I can prevent it from happening again.  I was working on a painting that was coming along to what I thought was a fairly nice piece of work.  I was almost finished when all of a sudden it blew up before my eyes.  I had ruined it.