Creating
a beautiful pastel portrait
I love working with pastel, particularly for pet portraits
where getting the depth, expression and fur just right is
so important.
Normally people love to watch an artist at work, I know I
do, any many of you have asked for some shots of a portrait
in the making, so here they are: |
| Where
to start |
Source material
First I need some good images as reference material.
I always draw from photographs for portrait work. Imagine
trying to get your pet to sit still for 5 minutes let alone
the time it takes for a portrait!
Unless we're talking cats, of course, and you'd like a portrait
of them sleeping... |
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For
this project I had a photo session with four tiny kittens
and their mum. As you can probably guess, the kittens had
just woken up. As I was looking through my resulting photos,
these three images struck me as perfect for a montage. |
Normally I will sketch the initial image straight on to
the paper which is great for watercolour or graphite work,
but with velour it's a little different.
First I draw the montage sketch on paper, then trace the
image on to the velour.
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| Next I start
on the head, usually the eyes first. In this case I started
to lay the light tones first then build up the mid and darker
tones. |
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What you can see
here is the 'underpainting'. It's the first layer of colour
which provides a base for the detail.
Pastel is even more 'smudgy than pencil to work with, so
typically I work with a tissue under my hand and try to work
from top to bottom, left to right. |
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Here I've finished
the detail on the kitten's head and started to work down the
body. Again it is all worked in the same way with the underpainted
layer of colour then the detail added on top.
She's loohing like you could tickle her chin now! |
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Kitten number
one finished!
Now I start all over again with kitten two. |
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| And finally,
the finished portrait... |
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