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davepuls — Red Swan
Published: 2010-12-19 20:20:57 +0000 UTC; Views: 2505; Favourites: 48; Downloads: 265
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Description
Oil pastels (Sennelier and Neopastel) on 220 gsm Daler-Rowney cartridge paper. A4 size (12x8 in). I tried to add texture to the dress with a kind of impasto technique, with the oil pastels.This is my first proper attempt at people/portraits, so please do let me know what you think!
Many thanks to:
for the wonderful reference photo: [link]
and to the beautiful model
Entered into the traditional art portrait contest: [link]
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Comments: 15
very nice 
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So do I - thanks for commenting!
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I love the texture you've used and the subject "speaks" to me because I've just finished something similar but in oils - a woman with long red hair looking at her reflection in the water 
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Thanks Kim! I thought of you while painting this, as I don't know many people who draw people in oil pastels. Looking forward to seeing your drawing...
I had a lot of difficulty with the face in this one, as the pastels are nearly as big as her face! I had to dab on bits of pastel, and then smooth them on with a colour shaper or a paper stump, and it is very hard to make corrections, or to cover over pencil marks! But I think I did reasonably well with the skin tones - mixing pink, raw sienna and white to get something approximately right!
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How big is this painting ? It seems her face was really tiny, so you must have had a lot of trouble doing her face!! I do the same as you if it's too tiny: I dab a bit of pastel on a blender stump or any other object I can use, then I apply it, then I smudge it with the blender stump. Q-sticks are also useful to put just a little dab of colour. It's a bit like applying make-up
I used the following tones for the tone flesh : I put a base of burnt umber for the darker shadows, with just a dab of blue (ultramarine or some other blue, but only very little), then a bit of burnt sienna and/or natural sienna to warm it up. I only apply thin layers, cross-hatching a bit or just touching the paper with the toip of the pastels. Then I start blending and smudging. At that stage, the colours look very strong and it looks ugly and like it's never going to turn right, but then I start with the white. Then I correct again with umber, sienna, sometimes a touch of ochre, a tiny bit of alizarin/ crimson if you need a bit more pink... or orther colours depending on the colours of the background an dthe general tone of the pictre. I work layers upon layers, always adding white from time to time to lighten up, but not too much as white takes aways the vividness of some colours. It's very lenghthy and a bit difficult, because it doesn't look good at first.. and then there's a moment when ta-dah - it turns OK. Phew. But that can only be done for large portraits. For very small faces, I use only white and a touch of sienna or umber, eapplying them very softly with the point of a fine, tiny blender stump, as it's impossible to do that directly with the pastels sticks.
I think you did very fine with the flesh tones here, they are in harmony with the rest, and the flaming dark red of her hair looks very good against her pale skin!
I still think the trick with drawing characters in pastels is to use a large format...
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Thank you! It's A4 size (30cm by 21cm).
I'm tempted to paint back views in the future, as I like doing hair, but hate doing faces, but I guess it just needs practice. I did this one as it is a lot easier practising on someone you don't know, as when I drew my wife it was unrecognisable (although my 4 year old son though THIS painting is of "mummy")
But, as you say, larger format might be the best practice - maybe just a face? But then it almost feels intimidating starring at someone's face for too long! I have tried pencil drawings, but they never work out because I am always itching to add some colour, and then the grey doesn't look right!
Anyway, thanks for the comments!
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