Denmark-based artist Silja Salmistu’s dedication to spontaneity, experimentation, and emotional resonance enlivens her floral and nonetheless life topics.
By Amy Leibrock
For pastel artist Silja Salmistu, there’s at all times a representational object that serves as an anchor in a portray, and her topic preferences of florals and fruits are traditional nonetheless life favorites that conjure scenes of spring. Her pastel works mix components of realism, semi-abstraction and impressionism, and are based mostly on a eager, direct statement of her topic.

That selection of topic typically carries emotional resonance for Salmistu. “As an illustration, I discover that I wish to paint sure flowers many times yearly once they bloom,” the artist says. “They take me again to my childhood in Estonia, to my mother’s backyard, or to the summer time meadows. Portray them seems like having a superb time with outdated mates.”

She continues, “Candy William flowers have at all times grown in my mom’s backyard. As a toddler, I didn’t like them as a result of, yearly on the anniversary of my grandmother’s birthday, we’d carry a bouquet of them to the cemetery to put on her grave. The flowers symbolized demise, grief and disappointment to me.”
In Denmark, the place Salmistu now lives, nevertheless, these flowers are discovered at celebratory occasions similar to highschool graduations, commemorating pleased days for younger folks. “This outlook has altered my adverse perspective of them,” she says, “and I’ve depicted these beautiful flowers in pastel.”
Study extra about Silja Salmistu’s portray course of and see extra of her works within the Winter 2025 problem of Pastel Journal.
Demonstration: Candy William
I positioned the flowers in a number of containers for a garden-like really feel and used a daylight lamp to mild the scene from above.


Step 1: I started with a random wash of blue and yellow water-soluble Caran d’Ache Neocolor 2 wax pastels to “break the silence” of the untouched floor. On the black-gray paper, they dried to cooler, hotter greens. Not having expertise with these flowers’ conduct in a vase—Do they maintain their pose, or do they “transfer” and “dance” over time?—I rushed to color a minimum of one “star of the present” earlier than any compositional concerns.

Step 2: I added distinction with light-colored adverse shapes within the background, adopted by the remainder of the bouquet flowers in quite a lot of reds and pinks. I wished to seize the important shapes and patterns of the flowers, stems and blades with out fidgeting with the main points.

Step 3: I introduced shiny blue to the background and yellow-greens to the blades to depict the temper of a contented summer time day. Splashes of both water or rubbing alcohol might be seen over the layer of blue.

Last Step: Holding a pastel pencil close to the highest, I softened edges and introduced the portray collectively by making vigorous random marks. They add a way of motion, ethereal vibration and vitality to Candy William (pastel on darkish UART 600 paper,13¾ x13¾).



Concerning the Creator
Amy Leibrock is a Cincinnati-based author and editor, and an everyday contributor to the Artists Community group of magazines.
Concerning the Artist

Denmark-based Silja Salmistu, of Estonia, graduated with honors from Estonia’s Tartu Artwork Faculty, in 1986, and earned a M.F.A. equal in portray on the College of Tartu, in 1994. She has exhibited in quite a few juried, curated, group, and solo reveals in Estonia, Finland, Denmark, England, France, China, and the USA, and her work has obtained quite a few awards. She’s a Member within the Pastel Guild of Europe, a Signature Member within the Pastel Society of America, and a Grasp Circle Member within the Worldwide Affiliation of Pastel Societies.