1960s Burrard Street Bridge in pastel

Burrard Street Bridge, Vancouver. Pastel on coloured paper. By Helen Andersen, signed “Andy”.
This one is freshly matted and now hangs in Danica’s office. In the 1960s Helen often used pastels for colour sketching. It afforded her a quick way to make colour notes for later paintings, but she also used pastel for finished compositions … especially ones with industrial themes.
Pastel was an unusual medium for Helen to choose, in a way. It had been exploited by illustrators of sentimental kitsch for the soft gradations of tone it could offer. Helen scorned such stuff but obviously liked the chalks, used in her own way. No cutesy blending, chalk marks showing just as they were put down. If it was good enough for Degas, whom she studied and admired, it was good enough for her.
Besides, using pastels to do strong, architectural compositions based on rough, industrial scenes would have appealed to Helen’s contrarian streak. It works, too, because of the direct way she handled her sticks.