Boy, it's been a while! I can't say I've been constantly working with pastels since then, but in the meantime I joined my local pastel society, have sat in on a lot demos at the pastel meetings, put in my entries at the member shows and attended quite a few workshops with well known pastel artists. I also bought a lot more pastels and have gotten over the reluctance to break my pastel sticks in half :-)
Most of the workshops I attended were for landscape work, with the exception of the Sally Strand workshop I took in November of 2011. I enjoyed trying my hand at landscapes and a still life or two, but I always gravitate back to wanting to do portraits. I tried a couple of small portraits over the years, one on pastelmat paper, one on La Carte and my latest PSSC show entry on Canson Mi-Tientes. It's funny, now that I think of it, all of my portrait tries have ended up as entries to the PSSC show. I guess that is the best indication of where my main interest lies.
One other very helpful learning experience as far as portrait instruction for me has been acquiring the Wende Caporale high definition video download from the Interweave website. I love the in-depth look at the artist's method, especially one I admire so much.
Anyway, I'm back working on Red Coat. Here it is after starting work on the face.
The first problem I encountered was trying to add more color to the face. I had pretty much filled up the tooth with lots of pale skintones years ago. I wanted to try the layering and weaving of vibrant color a la Wende Caporale, but it not going to happen here. I also think that maybe a sanded paper is not the best paper for the delicate layering of colors. I'm trying to use my lightest touch with the harder pastels, but it's kind of nerve wracking. I tend to get great globs of color where there should be mere whispers. I need a lot of practice I think.
Here I've been working on areas of paper where I had applied a lot less pastel or none at all.
It's been easier going, though I still had to concentrate hard on keeping the hand steady while applying delicate strokes. My brain seems to think those two things are not compatible. Another whole art in itself I have found, is trying to judge where exactly the nubby chunk of pastel in your hand actually touches the paper. In my experience trying to see where this happens involves putting your face as close to the paper as possible without rubbing anything off. Wende definitely doesn't do this so I imagine I will eventually develop a feel for accurate placement of pastel without having to see it.
My work setup is better now. I have a lot more pastels and fold out tables to put them on. I have all my pastels within arms reach, which is great. Not a bad setup for my little art room. Now if I could only get working windows back in here.
I'm enjoying the process.
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