Why Pastels?

I thought I would share with you in this blog post about why I decided to have a go at pastel painting as one of my new mediums to try.

One of the reasons is that I can still use pencils! I've said before that I find it difficult with a brush to capture the detail I'd like as I can't seem to control a brush like I can a pencil. Because pastels come in sticks and pencils it seemed like a medium I personally would be able to create fine detail with.

It also seems a fairly 'claen' medium. By this I mean that there's no brushes or palettes to wash after painting. This suits me because I'm not the tidiest person, but it also means I can do an hour or so's artwork and not spend nearly as long setting up and tidying away afterwards. Of course, pastels can be dusty and I've already discovered that the velour paper picks up fluff as a pastime as well as being unforgiving when trying to remove smudges so I will need to be careful while I'm painting to not smudge pastel everywhere.

Being able to work dark to light or light to dark also appealed to me as I struggle with coloured pencil to remember to keep the highlights light and will often make a drawing darker and darker as i make the light bits too dark to begin with. By being able to add highlights after drawing the mid and dark tones I will hopefully be able to avoid this problem.

And, the main reason is because there are so many artists out there who produce such beautiful pet portraits and wildlife art using pastels that I felt I really should have a go and see if I could do it too. They create a really lovely softness when used to draw fur. Here are a few of my favourite pastel artists:

Sarah's Pet Portraits
Vic Bearcroft
Nutty Art
C.P. Art

I'm still here!

Just thought i'd post to say I'm still alive and I have been working on a graphite pet portrait recently, but it's a surprise for a present, so i'm unable to show it on the blog. I finished it today and have just emailed a copy to the customer for approval.

I have a coloured pencil pet portrait to finish in the next few days as well, which is of a Brittany Spaniel, so I will have some updates of that one I can show you. I am planning on doing some of that tommorrow, and I am also thinking of trying out my new pastel pencils as well, as I still haven't done anything with them yet. I've been doing a lot of overtime at work, and when i'm at home i've had portraits to do, as well as my Sister coming to stay, so i've been really busy. I'm thinking of trying a different subject matter with the pastels - still animals, but possibly some wildlife, rather than domestic animals. I shall update you all tomorrow.

New art materials

I have been shopping again and treated myself to some new art materials.

I bought two pads of pastel paper - velour paper, which has a lovely, soft, velvety finish to it and is apparently perfect for drawing fur and some Art Spectrum colorfix paper, which has also been recomended on the Pet Portrait forum. It's been primed and the primed surface allows up to ten layers of pastel to be applied, and no primer is required.

I also got a bargain off of ebay - a set of 72 Derwent Pastel Pencils for £30. I got pastel pencils to go with my sticks so I can apply the fine detail to finish off a Pet Portrait.

I'm really looking forward to trying them out and doing some more pastel portraits, but I have to be good and work on my current Pet Portraits.

Wolf portrait in soft pastels

I couldn't resist the temptation to get playing with my pastels today so started with a demo in the Society for All Artists magazine. The demo is by wildlife artist Vic Bearcroft and it's of a wolf. He called the image 'free spirit'. His version of it is here on his website: http://www.aboutface-art.co.uk/wildlife.htm It's under 'Wolves' and is the first one on display.

This is my version:
As you can see, not as good, but i'm still pleased with it, considering it must be 10 years since I last used pastels at school! I did mine on Ingres paper, instead of velour as the demo is on, purely because I have no velour paper. I found getting the fine detail with the black pastel hard work and I need some more colours. I did really enjoy it however, and will definitely be doing some more and it only took a couple of hours.