Work in Progress: Peaches, Update 7
More detail in the head now, and started working down the chest.
This certainly is a learning process for me. Pastels are new to me and, though I’m making progress, it’s been slow. I’m still finding my way handling this medium, especially as it relates to detail. And, I like detail. Soft pastel sticks do not lend themselves easily to great detail, at least for me, so I elected to do the main figure work with pastel pencils. The pencils are harder and can be sharpened to a point. An artist I’ve been studying for pastel pencil work is Cuong Nguyen. He is simply fabulous and his portraits can inspire any artist to do better! Check out his website and time lapse videos to see his amazing work.
Anyway, critical to detail work with pastel (as with colored pencil) is a very sharp point. I think I’ve been a little lax in that respect. That, I’ll have to work on. Another aspect is planning and drawing in detail prior to filling in color. I need to concentrate more on drawing in the line work first, just as I do with colored pencil. I alluded to the similarity between colored pencil and pastel pencils at the beginning, but somehow I failed to keep that in mind as I went forward. I blocked in areas of color first and had problems drawing in the line work on top. The blocked in color didn’t always correspond to the line work, and so I would have to work over those areas again and again. Gradually I’m getting a better feel for the medium. Again, keep a sharp point, draw in the line work and gradually fill in the color. Always keep a sharp point if you want detail. Same as colored pencil!
I’ve added some Stabilo Carb Othello pastel pencils to the mix to get the proper colors. The few basic colors I’m using now to get in the chest fur for Peaches are Carb Othello 105 (ivory), 615 (dark ochre), Faber Castell Pitt Pastel 280 (burnt umber), 169 (caput mortuum) and 182 (brown ochre).
I have to say, though, that I’m enjoying the pastel and will probably continue using it.
