Pat Pritchard Summer 2023
1000 Pencils
By Dan Breen
In a room filled with sunlight a thousand color pencils await Pat Pritchard. She creates award winning drawings in the bright and friendly room. Her abstract drawings seem to swim and undulate as if in a sea of water, her close-up visions of orchids and flowers reflect close study of petals and color, and her drawings of fish seem to swim off the page.
“Drawing brings joy to my life,” says Pritchard, “and if it brings joy to other people that’s just fine with me. The world could be falling apart, but when I sit down and draw all the problems go away. I’ve always been like that all my life.”
Pritchard escaped to the basement of her home as a child, losing herself in the joy of drawing with her mother’s art supplies. “A struggling artist is not what I am about. I am too high maintenance for that.” Says Pritchard, “My mom always said if you go into art, you will have money for six months and starve for four months.” Pritchard received an MFA from Saint Mary’s College and a Masters in Design from Notre Dame. Pritchard went into teaching, returning to the South Bend area from Florida early in her career.
Pritchard was a teacher in the South Bend School Corporation for 38 years. She taught at Eggleston, Swanson, Brown and McKinley and many other schools across the districts. She recalls teaching the middle school age group her favorite to teach. “There is so much untapped talent in the South Bend schools,” says Pritchard. “The middle school kids are as good as college freshman.” She made her class environment for the kids to play and develop creativity. She takes a lesson from her years of teaching to a wide variety of cultures.
“You need to be open minded in the way you create, in the way you garden, in the way you cook, and in the way you do everything. You must be open to different ideas because you don’t know it all. There is always going to be someone better. People need to be more accepting of others’ ideas. I want to know how people from different cultures feel.”
When Pritchard sits down to start drawing, she puts down a few lines on paper. She follows what is on paper as the drawing begins to build a mood. Pritchard will work on multiple drawings at once. A drawing may sit for a year before she picks it up again to finish. Pritchard only draws from real life stills. She can draw the orchids she keeps in her home so long as the flowers are in bloom. “In the spring I will buy a flat of pansies and just sit there and draw pansies,” says Pritchard. Pritchard keeps a found box of deceased bees, butterflies and beetles she uses as subjects for her art.
Pritchard chooses her colors by what feels good. She uses color to build the mood of the drawing. She draws on Canson French linen paper using Prisima soft color pencils. Pritchard started using the paper and pencil combo at Notre Dame when she studied car design. The combination has stayed with her to build texture and layers of color.
“The thing with color pencil is you can layer it. It doesn’t get muddy like watercolor.” Pritchard explained her technique in layering creates the shade and the movement in her art. By holding the pencil close to the tip, she is able to create a deeper color, and by holding the pencil near the end she creates a finer color.
