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.

Painting 1

Oh boy, I always said it was a-comin': the day when I made the first "Painting" post. Yay!

As I may have mentioned before, I don't paint a whole lot but enjoy mixing mediums. This originally was intended as a quick and to-the-point monotone watercolor painting in sepia; however, I completed the painting and figured I'd add in a few details.

So I whipped out the pastel and charcoal pencils and went to town on the painting. I always liked to use charcoal over ink for the textural effects, and it worked similarly here. There's actually quite a variety of colors here: about 9, I believe. I left them kind of subtle to keep with the original plan but I think they definitely add something.

The painting is on Crescent 310 illustration board. It's an okay surface for this sort of thing: not as absorbent as good watercolor paper (the water WILL run) but tough and it holds its shape well even under my "soak it" approach. Crescent recommends it for pencils and not wet media but it is a multi-purpose board, so there you have it.

*UPDATE*

Added in a background with some sort of brown paint that was on my palette mixed into a bunch of Cadmium Red.

Sexy.