Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Portrait Drawing Techniques...Pastel


There is a lot of great artwork and hand-made beauty on the net....and sometimes I am struck by a gorgeous picture and can't get it out of my head! I saw this knit shop on the front page of Etsy and e-mailed the owners, asking for permission to use their images for inspiration. I rarely see such gorgeous product pictures. I love the pose, the color, the shape of the scarf...beautiful!

I don't do a lot of pastel portraits. I draw from the live model quite often using pastels and charcoal - but they have few layers of pastel - they are very immediate. So this was a learning process for me.

I was working on a pre-made grey pastel board, one that has a similar texture to a very fine sandpaper. I loved the grey and the way the oranges in the drawing looked against it. But I did some things wrong - I did my initial drawing with a very deep red nupastel, and I was battling (trying to cover) those lines for the rest of the drawing.

I love layering blues, greens and purples in skin tones - but I forgot that at some point the pastel becomes "saturated" and I can't draw on top of it any more! I did spray fix and sand away some areas hoping to recapture some texture and allow more layers, but I wasn't successful.

O well...the overall impact is pretty good, and I loved giving it a try, and I'm inspired to try another drawing! Thank you so much for inspiring me!

http://www.ellita.etsy.com/ Gorgeous shop!!!!

11 comments:

Earmark Social said...

that is gorgeous, you captured everything wonderfully! GREAT JOB!

Vyeshi said...

beautiful! maybe the shop owners or model will buy it!

esque said...

Very stunning! I have the worst difficulty working with pastels but you totally pulled it off!

Jamie Ribisi-Braley said...

That is a gorgeous pastel! Love the colors!! That's so cool to see the inspiration behind the piece, too.

amy said...

That is an excellent portrait.
it almost looks like an oil painting.

OurWanderingAdventures said...

Oh my! It's quite stunning!

Nikasha said...

I think you did a great job with this piece Kristina- you do such a great job of using color!

Krystyna81 said...

thank you all for the kind words! I am hoping to practice more with the pastels...I love the colors, and the immediacy...when you have to squeaze studio time in during the kids' nap time it's good to use something that's ready when you are!

I look forward to sharing more portraits...thanks again for commenting and visiting!

Unknown said...

That is stunning! Really, really stunning!

Michelle Brunner said...

Just beautiful! I love your work!

TSL said...

I know all about saturating pastel, but you can't tell from your photo and are most gracious to speak of it - ha! I like the composition here, lovely piece as your work is.