Having a 30-year career in art direction, graphic design and illustration, Donna Slade has what she calls a “straightforward approach” to her contemporary realistic paintings. She observes her subjects closely, paying attention to all the details and aims to “capture and portray the ‘real’ and not the ‘ideal.’” Slade also studied architectural drafting, so her background in pen and ink easily translated to her passion for colored pencils. Working with colored pencils is a very time-consuming process for Slade, with her larger pieces taking hundreds of hours. She works from her own photographs, often combining and cropping elements from multiple images. Once the composition is ready she begins to draw.
Donna Slade in her studio.
“In 1990 I discovered and became a charter member of the Colored Pencil Society of America. The colored pencil allowed me to keep the fine detail and my passion for color. My paintings were always very detailed and realistic but varied in subject matter,” she says.
“I had painted a few portraits but never really considered myself as a portrait artist. But I found myself infatuated with painting faces. I find my passion for portraits growing stronger as I continue to embrace the journey of discovering my artistic voice.”
Her love for depicting faces grew even more in July 2017 when she visited Columbia, South America, as a volunteer peace delegation with the Witness for Peace organization. “I witnessed a very personal and revealing account of events and suffering endured by Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities under an oppressive government,” she says. When Slade returned from the journey, she kept asking herself, “How can I help bring about change?” The answer was in a series of 20 colored pencil paintings for the exhibition The Faces of Colombia – The Invisible Communities that took her two years to complete and now is traveling to several locations in the eastern United States.
Chucks Canvas, colored pencil, 12 x 12"
Robert T, colored pencil, 14 x 11"
Included among those pieces is San Antonio Girl, which depicts a young girl who was playing marbles in the San Antonio neighborhood of Colombia, South America. As Slade explains, the community was “built to house families who were displaced from their original communities.”
The sense of energy in any portrait she draws is important to Slade, so she pays attention to the relationship of the components in the work that are around the focal point. One of the ways she does this is by starting with the eyes, which she considers the most important element of her colored pencil works. They need to speak to her in order to continue with the work.
San Antonio Girl, colored pencil, 11 x 14"
Crayola Blue, colored pencil, 16 x 13"
Outside of portraiture, Slade has done still lifes and other figurative scenes. Included is Chucks Canvas, which was a throwback memory to when Slade played basketball in high school. “My actual shoes were red, but I took some ‘artistic license’ in painting them,” she says. Another of the pieces is Crayola Blue. Describing the work, she says, “I found this little dish in a local thrift shop. It reminded me of the dish thatI kept my crayons in as a child. So, I set up this little still life. I filled the dish with crayons and photographed it on a mirror.”
Slade is a charter and signature member of the Colored Pencil Society of America, as well as a member of the Portrait Society of America and the North Carolina Pastel Society. —
Donna Slade
dsladeart@gmail.com
www.donnasladeart.com
Powered by Froala Editor
