Join Agata for a demonstration and workshop on Saturday the 17th of July

Agata Lelek demonstrates how to perform a portraiture from imagination.

Ever since I saw Regina Hona demonstrate her way of fixing the pastel powder firmly on to the support I have used this method with great success. I suppose I’m lucky to have been provided with enough paper for my work for free to last me a good few years and this is one of the reasons I don’t see why I have to spend so much on protecting the free paper with costly glassine. You’ll do as you please of course, but the method of fixing your pastel is so good that the cellophane that normally attracts powder via static electricity doesn’t have anything to attract anymore.
So here we go.
1. Lay your finished pastel flat and attach it to a firm surface at the corners using any safe method. Remember if using masking tape to remove it immediately after you finished as it tends to tear away the paper.
2. Place a sheet of glassine (the only one you’ll ever need if you wish to use my method) over your work gently and affix it to the same surface at four corners (glassine needs to be slightly bigger then your work) Make sure it lays completely flat on you pastel.
3. With about 20cm wide printer’s rubber roller, firmly roll it over the entire area you want fixed. There might be a tiny imprint of your pastel on the glassine after you remove it, but usually it’s insignificant and won’t change the look of your work. Remove glassine paper gently by lifting it off rather then sliding it. Wipe the residue pastel clean for future use.

4. Cut a suitable size of cellophane (no more than 50 cents a metre) and attach it to your work at four corners for further protection and better viewing (it simulates glass)
Good luck with this.
AgatA

1. Allow some time before actual start to look at your model and absorb as much of the information that’s
in front of you as you can, the painting will get easier.
2. Start with large shapes and don’t let the painting process pull you in for detail, before the large form
looks like the image in front of you when you squint. It is sooo much easier to correct the
drawing/painting while in the embryo form.
3. Try my method of showing the detail by describing it’s negative shapes (area that surrounds it), it
looks much more painterly and lets you use those BIG shapes, it’s fun, trust me on that.
4. With pastels as with oil paints an old, well proven method of working from dark to light is still the best.
When working with pastel your touch should be light as a feather initially and get stronger as you
progress to the light colours, with oils, one starts with lean dark colours, using their beautiful
transparency and progresses to light with thicker paint. If it was good enough for the masters it is
good enough for me.
5. Try not to set your aim too high, it’s a great disappointment if you don’t reach this point, allow time for
your progress. A step at a time.
6. I still believe that the basis for good visual art is good drawing skills, you don’t have to be another
Leonardo, nor Michelangelo but it helps immensely if you can sketch an idea. Would you be able to
dance without ability to walk first? If some of you are asking,”What if I just don’t want to dance what
if I WANT TO RUN?” Try sports not art.
7. And try not to abuse yourself, it rarely helps, but can stop you from trying.
8. Not every artist progresses in the same way, some go in leaps while others tip toe in a slow but steady
rhythm. Which one are you? I work intensely for a week or two and than I have to rest and start
getting momentum so to speak to be able to tackle next project. It is during the rest time that my art
evolves.
9. I always thought that if you have talent, you basically have made it… I couldn’t have been further from
the truth, yes it’s a good beginning, but you need to have passion for art and patience and plenty of
luck. There are masses of very good artists, but only a handful of them will make “it”.
10. And last but not least, PAINT FROM YOUR HEART not from your mind, the best art is the one that will
move you, and for this it needed to be created with a strong emotion.

She arrived in Australia in 1982, here she met her husband and a couple of years later started a family. She has continued to paint all through the years whilst raising her two children and remained very passionate about her art. Her main influences then were Caravaggio, Rembrandt and Andrew Wyeth.
It has not been until recent years however that she begun to exhibit. Her previously traditional style of portraiture evolved into a more provocative expression of herself and earned her recognition as an outstanding talent.

Her art emerges from the need to express hidden strong human passions. Stripping an object of colour bares the underlying emotion and this is what Agata Lelek endeavours to achieve with her bold strokes and innovative use of texture and mediums to reach the desired effect. Her later works were greatly influenced by the art of Mark Demsteader and Jenny Valmadre.

Agata’s first passion is portraiture and figurative art, but she is by no means limited to that alone, likewise her preferred medium is pastel, but she is equally at ease with oil, watercolour or other mediums.
Her ability to portray with striking resemblance and capturing personality and ambience of her models has placed her in demand for commissioned work, as a tutor and workshop demonstrator.

Agata teaches life drawing, portraiture and mixed techniques at the many Art societies in Victoria; pastel and oil painting MMAG, pastel and acrylic in GECAG and all the techniques and media privately at her home studio.
She’s won many awards among them; “Best in show”, “Best pastel” twice and “Best other Medium” during WAS’ Annual Art Show, “Best Use OF Colour” and “The Best Non-Traditional Work” at the PSV Art Show.
Agata Lelek is currently represented by Jenny Pihan Fine Art.