Orange and Blue

I wanted to try the PanPastels out so I figured I'd try painting one of the other sky scenes to go along with the black and white one. Still haven't done much full-color painting of any kind, so this gave me a good chance to try that out as well.

I started on a white sheet of Pastelmat (which was intimidating, since I'm used to working on colored paper) and used the landscape set to rough in the background areas... pretty much everything got either a blue or magenta underpainting. Afterwards, I started working with both the landscape and dark shades set and adding in the shadows behind the clouds using the dark colors, then I roughed in the clouds with a couple shades of yellow pans. When I was satisfied with their overall shape, I switched over to the rest of my soft pastels and started adding in the upper layers: I was really glad to have the big 80-set of Senneliers here, since they provided most of the colors for the clouds. I used a Great American blue (called Neptune, love the color names for them) to add in the really intense blue color to the large areas of the sky... it almost exactly matched the actual color of the sky that day.

9x12" on Pastelmat.

Darkness and Light

I love this time of year. The weather's been cold but not freezing and there's a certain way the light falls when the sun comes out that results in some fantastic sky patterns. I've never really done any landscapes, much less skyscapes, so I figured I'd go all in and try something dramatic.

This is a view of the sky from my house when it was this brilliant orange and purple color last week.
Totally freehanded this one, no tools/measurements or anything... I don't know how well I could do that for a portrait but it was no problem with scenery.

The foreground scenery was drawn with a soft charcoal stick and the sky was done with a black PanPastel and one of those round sponges as well as the flat, rectangular sponge. I really like PanPastels so far.

9x12" on Strathmore 500 charcoal paper. I'm not sure whether to call this one a drawing or painting.

Figured I should give the Panpastel drawing set a go, this was done with the set of 10. I've never used these pastels or this style before, and I had no idea how the colors were supposed to be used together, of rolled with it and was amazed by the way they started magically coming together as I added the different colors in. I had no idea what the blue pastel was for so I just kind of started throwing it in wherever it felt right and I'm pretty pleased with the end result. It looks sort of like an oil painting, and honestly they handle and mix very similarly to oil paint except they're already dry and smooth.

Apparently the technique is called "colorism" when you use cool colors in the shadow areas and warm colors for the light areas. Too bad somebody else invented it first, because I'm digging this technique after having done so many tonal black & white works, it's really different and fun and refreshing.

9.5x13" on orangeish Fabriano Tiziano paper. About 2 hours.

Pastel Swatches

Took the time today to prepare swatches of pastel like I did of my watercolors. This doesn't serve as much of a purpose since opaque pastel lays down pretty much exactly as it looks from the stick, but they're pretty, at least.

I did my best to color-correct for how they appear in the real world. They're not quite as finicky as watercolor in that department.

Set 1:

The first set we have here are from Sennelier's 80 half-stick assortment. These are very good pastels for the money, IMO. I've read some complaints that a few colors are really hard, but from what I can tell, only a few colors seem noticeably harder than the others. Generally, these are soft, rich colored pastels and I've thoroughly enjoyed using them. (Not these of course. I haven't painted a single thing with these and I've had them for 5 months now. :D )

Set 2:

These are assorted pastels and pencils I've accumulated since the Fall of 2009.  I'll note a few interesting things here.

The Yarka Russian Sauce crayons are very nice. The colors are all muted and subdued and the sticks feel quite similar to a Conte crayon. I haven't got the chance to try them out yet.

The rest are typical pastels I've collected based on my primary style of portraitrature, you'll notice a lot of earth colors. These also tend to be REALLY TOXIC in some brands, so watch yourself.

Of the brands, I believe Great American Artworks are my favorite. They have great names too. I just love that Atmosphere color.

Drawings 2 (Demo)

More drawings!



These two were part of a demo I did:



There is the preliminary pencil drawing and the final color drawing.
Differences are visible between the two, I cannot recall which are corrections and which are just minor accidents. Generally, the color version is more technically correct.

As for the actual technique, I use conte crayons, pastel pencils, and soft pastels.
A simple conte sketching set has rapidly one of the most used tools in my arsenal. I begin with bistre for the darkest areas, blend it in with a cotton swab, and layer on the sanguine crayons and blend to shape the general form of the skin. I use three or four soft pastels to add in a little extra color to the skin afterwards.
Pastel pencils are used for the mouth, eyes, and details.

It's a very straightforward technique and I think it produces pretty good results.




This is another portrait produced using the same technique:





I don't really know either of these ladies very well but they were nice enough to allow me to use their photo for a reference and seemed very pleased with the results.





I have come to realize that I'm fairly good at what I do... it kind of surprises me just how happy a simple drawing can make someone.
The longer I do this, the more confident I become in my skills.



Hopefully I'll be doing this for a long time.