RECENT PREOCCUPATION with A4 coloured pencil drawings has been making me itch for larger drawings. To avoid falling into the comforting embrace of charcoal, soft pastel seemed the perfect medium and gave me the opportunity to finally open the tantalising rainbow-in-a-box of my 40-colour set of Cass Art half-pastels. Looking through the pastel studies of Edgar Degas (they are composed like photographs or film stills) and the incomparable figure drawings of Paula Rego, I was reminded of the importance of an image containing a visual question. An image that ties up all its own loose ends can be enjoyable to look at, but the very fact
