Beginning From the Flames

Chalk, pastel and coloured conte

I am Rhea as you can probably already guess. This is my piece inspired by Fire. It is called “Beginning from the Flames” after much thought and research . . .  Mediums I used were chalk pastel and coloured conté. I love that stuff, but from now on I should probably spice it up and use something else for a change. I just like how the stuff really suits the need of most of my works . . . hazy, undefined. I’m sure you could do that with other stuff, I just need to find it.This is a picture depicting a landscape where some kind of destruction took place; forest fire or a nuclear explosion. And rising from the ashes, within the nutrients of the dead tree stump, new life grows. The new life is like fire itself. To exist, fire needs fuel, oxygen, and heat. Life needs these building blocks to thrive too. These elements can be reused to guarantee new life after destruction, and sometimes destruction is the only path to rebirth.

So the symbol of rebirth that fire represents is what mainly inspired me. The first picture in my head was not that of red, orange, or yellow, but of ash and darkness, from within which glows a dim light. Because that’s why we invented fire, right, to keep warm in the cold and to see in darkness. But enough of that.

My biggest challenge was probably to set the feeling I wanted when one looks at the picture. I felt that I couldn’t achieve that feeling with paint, so I opted for my preferred medium. It was really difficult to get that ashy look on the stump and a cloudy look in the sky. Eventually I somewhat mastered this, using to my advantage the chunky and somewhat blotchy effect the chalk pastel has. Another tricky aspect was getting the sheets to look just right, and it was hard to get this with chalk pastel, so I tried coloured conté and pencil crayon. It worked better, but I’m still not really sure what I think about the sprouts. So . . . I suppose that’s it. I really enjoyed this project; I can’t wait to see what someone would write based on it, if anybody does.

This is just a suggestion: perhaps we could do this same thing, but with the other ancient elements? Like water, earth and air? Just an idea. It would be fun.

by Rhea
Grade 11
Ross Sheppard School

Teacher: Peg McPherson