Pastel portrait

After watching the session on pastels in this lot of DVD's, I decided to pull out the portrait box of Windsor and Newton pastels I had tucked away. I had originally started playing around with some skin tones on this piece back in December but never did anymore until last night.

I can see areas that are wrong today in the natural light but I won't go back and fix them, instead apply them to the next one I do. I also did this at night under normal lights which made the skin tones appear much warmer than they look today. I also need a wider range of colours as I just didn't have the right pastels for the blond hair and had to make do with the yellow toned ones which aren't right.

Overall though I am reasonably happy with it as a play around piece and I am keen to explore more pastel work. I did pull out my beloved colour pencils for the eyes and lips though. I couldn't get the detail I wanted in the eyes and I needed those colours for the lips.

I wouldn't mind exploring portraits using both pastels and coloured pencils though as it is so much quicker to get the skin done with pastels as that would equate to hours and hours with coloured pencils, but I love the detail you get with coloured pencils.

This is done on Art Spectrum colourfix paper, a bluey-green shade.