Friday, March 20, 2009

Three Colorful Pastel Figure Drawings from the Live Nude Female Model

There's nothing like fresh supplies to get your creative juices flowing! I just recieved a big package of colored, textured pastel paper and was raring to go when we had our figure drawing group last night. I strated with a deep blue piece of paper and grabbed lots of bright colors. I'm pleased with the composition and alot of the lost/found lines, and the variety of ways that I defined her figure, but I think I still need to work on the face and perhaps soften the background.


I didn't want to over-work the drawing above, so I quickly grabbed a piece of sap green pastel paper and three colors - orange, bluish grey and red and sat on the other side of the room for this quick (about 5- 10 minute) sketch. The colors worked very well together!

The last post of the night was an "artists request" - we wanted to draw the model's gorgeous hair down! So she struck the dramatic pose and I positioned the light high above her head, creating a lot of interesting shadows, especially in her torso. This is a warm, earthy paper (almost the color of the Georgia clay!) and I was surprised at the beautiful color relationships that I could build with my Nupastels. The upper left corner is my favorite spot! That's a light mint green layered over a rich magenta...awesome combo!


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I LOOOVE the colors! So bold and fresh and alive!! I cant wait to start :D Color is new to me, having mostly worked in Black and White, even in photography. Your having so much fun with your colors is so inspirational! THANKS!!

Krystyna81 said...

your welcome! if you venture into colors, I recommend Nupastles ofver regular pastels - they are a little denser, and you can create crisper lines and control the amount of pastel on the page easily. Started sets have around 12 colors, and are the perfect amount of colors to start experimenting with (although intense colors - reds, blues, yellows - not a lot of the soft, creamy colors). Some stores may also cary small sets in one "section" - like "skin tones" - those sets are also nice, because they have more of the half-tones. Good luck and have fun!

Nika said...

I absolutely LOVE your work. Each piece is fresh and inspirational. I have always done work in charcoal and decided to venture into color last year with pastels. I started with oil pastel and have landed in chalk pastels with passion. I am starting to try soft pastels and am testing how to use them versus/with the chalk. I have used a couple of your pieces as trials with abstract figures and they have helped me learn how to blend and layer color. Thank you for your inspiration.