Work in Progress: Raine, Update 1
As I mentioned at the end of the last Update, I’m inclined to do another portrait. I bought a few varieties of pastel paper over the past few months, with the intent to see how I like them for pastel portrait work. The brands I purchased were Canson mi tientes pastel paper in a few different colors, U-Art 500 sanded pastel paper and Sennelier La Carte Pastel paper. I used the Canson to do the portrait of Peaches. This time I’m going to use the Sennelier pastel paper. Being a sanded paper, it is much rougher in texture, so I’m real interested in how different the experience will be. The paper I chose was sand color.
The portrait I’ll be working on is one of my granddaughter, Raine. I took the photo some years ago but the expression and pose, I think, are very natural, and wonderful for a portrait. I was drawn also to the way the wind had played with her hair. Although the face is in light shade, there is plenty of light to define her features, and I like the sharp contrast in light and shade as the sunlight catches her hair. I think the lights of her hair will look good against the darker color of the sanded pastel paper. I have a number of other photos to help with the details.
The size of the portrait will be 16” by 20” but I haven’t decided on horizontal or vertical format. I’m leaning toward horizontal.
The first step will be to place the figure on the paper, fix the topmost and bottommost points of the head and determine the angle between them. From there I’ll work out all the rest of the features. I’ll discuss the first steps next Update.