Some Fine Tuning

I've gotten some more of the background in, but before covering the entire background I thought I'd leave a clear area close to the face.

That way I could do some fine tuning on his features. Most of this has been using my pastel pencils and with the Giraults since it's delicate work. Next I'll work on the hair

Here's what my working setup looks like. It's nice when the day is warm and I can open the window.

Another Marty Portrait

It's not really a portrait, just that my model happens to be Marty. It will have kind of a fantasy theme when complete. I've been in a fantasy kick lately and have a few other fantasy themed concepts in mind for future art projects.

Here are a few progress shots.

The paper is a 18.5 x 24" piece of olive green Colourfix. It's a very nice sanded surface. I have used Colourfix before with colored pencils and liked it a lot. It seems to be working very well for me in pastels too. I've been using mostly pastel pencils for the face and hands and some of the harder pastels sticks for the backgound. Eventually I'll use softer pastels for finishing touches and larger areas of the background.

Once I get more done it will become more apparent what the fantasy element is in this piece. Stay tuned. :-)

Finished Artwork

I have a few finished pieces that I haven't shown. The baking pic finally was done a few months ago after a lot of feet dragging.

What held me up for a long while was wondering what to put outside the windows. I knew I didn't want the blinds and the original view of my neighborhood outside. I finally came across a nice reference picture of a morning sky over a golden field. I got going again and finished it rather quickly after that.

Another piece is "In Dreams". I spent a lot of time putting stars in this background. I tried a few different kinds of white gel pens, and a white fine tipped marker but what ended up being the best star maker was my sakura electric eraser. A few quick touches of the eraser tip easily lifted off the colored pencil right down to the white board.

I finished off two more pastel pieces, the rose and one that has been in work for years, my Backe boys picture.

For the rose picture I re-purposed a sanded board I used in a workshop years ago. It was one of the first pastel workshops I ever took. I learned a lot and had a lot of fun, though my none of my workshop pieces ever inspired me to finish them.

I took my try below of a tree lined path, brushed off some of the pastel and brushed the remaining with alcohol to create an interesting underpainting. Then I painted a rose on it.

And this is what I got.

I like how the reddish tones from the previous painting show through here and there. A lot of these sanded boards are pretty sturdy and can hold up to brushing off the pastel and even washing it off.

The Backe boys picture is one that I started many moons ago. Looking at my reference and progress photos, I seem to have gotten the idea for it sometime late in 2011. I composited different reference elements of the concept in photoshop and then left if there. The next burst of activity is in March of 2014 when I completed the drawing and transferred it to a multimedia art board. I came back to it a few more times in 2014 and drew in some of the figures. That must have been very taxing because I didn't return to work on it again until 2016.

I did a substantial amount of work on it at this point but somehow managed to lose interest again, because it didn't get finished until late last year. What a journey! I think the problem has been my lack of confidence using pastels. It's only in recent years that I have begun to feel more control in this medium.