Paint the Village

Last summer I went to one of the small villages in the area because the local artists' group was hosting something called 'Paint the Village.' It was a really fun day, in which people from all over the area converged to either paint or draw, or watch the artists and bid on their work.

I arrived bright and early after a drive from a wedding in another province. There was a lot of coffee involved. I brought a whole trunk-full of supplies, since I wasn't sure what I was going to make.

I set up my drawing board right near the bay.

 

 Notice the totally inadequate pillow. I hurt so much the next day.

 

 Then it started to rain! I finished the pastel while it was under a protective garbage bag.

I don't have a nice photo of the finished product, because it sold that night. Here it is while set-up for the auction.

It was really nice to get outside and spend the day doing what I love. I don't have much time to draw lately, and this was a wonderful day. I hope they do it again this year.

Laughing Kids - Finished!

 Well, I'm finally done school, and that gives me a whole lot of free time to start drawing again, and to get a few posts up! I finished this a couple of weeks ago, but haven't been very good about posting things. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. I think it has a lot of energy. Not to mention, I finally got everyone looking right, so that's a big bonus. It's been sent off and I hope will make someone very happy for Christmas.

Here's a couple close-ups of the faces:

Laughing Kids - Almost There

Well, a few layers and corrections later, and this one is turning out pretty well. I've started adding some colour into the shadows, because I want there to be quite a lot going on, given that the subject is high energy, even if the original photo was more neutral. Also, I think I've got the boy's face sorted out pretty well, he's not looking squashed anymore:

And then here's a photo with another layer, and starting to build up the background a bit more. I've also toned down that orange shirt a bit, because I was finding it too distracting in the overall composition. First a added blue and purple, but that really muddied it up too much, so I ended up blending in some light grey, and that really did the trick.

Laughing Kids - Corrections

I left you on the last post with a cliffhanger about how I'd destroyed the boys face in my pastel. I've been working and fidgeting with it for the past few days, and here's where I've gotten so far:

Followed by a few layers to flesh everything out, and I'm getting close:

I still have a fair bit to do, including finding a better spot to take a picture, because I can't get the colours right for you here. He's coming along fairly well now, and I think another day or so and I'll have it.

Laughing Kids - Underpainting

A friend of mine asked me to do a picture of he and his sister wen they were little. It's a really cute photo, and they've both got big grins of their faces. Should be a fun picture, with lots of bright colours. Here are the first few shots.

I choose a nice dark paper, because I want to colours to really stand out. It is a lot darker than I've done portraits on, though, so it might get interesting. I'm starting out with darker colours, then lightening as I go.

Ok, now the problem. I don't know if it's the different technique I'm using, or I'm just getting over confident in my pastel abilities, but look what I did to to the poor boy on the next layer:

Yeah, he looks a little squashed. This should be interesting.

Tep's Wedding Portrait - Ready for Framing

I'm very pleased with this and can't wait to get a frame. They're coming to visit for Thanksgiving, so I've got two weeks to get everything ready, which should be plenty! I wish it photographed a bit better, because it's reflecting a little on the whites, and washing out the colours in the darker areas. Nevertheless, I'm sure you get the idea. Can't wait to give it to her!

Tep's Wedding Portrait - A Bit of Life

Looking at the last photo I took of this pastel I realized that the entire thing was fairly dull. There wasn't much vibrancy or life to the two, supposedly happy, people. So I went over it and added some depth, darker skin tones, more colour in the background, and a bit of contrasting colour to make things pop. The photo isn't capturing all the changes, but the overall tone of the piece has a lot more life in it. Not for more contrasts, and to go over the details.

Tep's Wedding Portrait - Moving right along

This stage of the portrait seemed to go very very quickly. I think I need to adjust the features a fair bit, but I still like how it's coming over all. I also need to start thinking about how I'm going to do the dress, since it was lace, and the background simply isn't anywhere near developed enough to suit the portrait. Much to do!

Tep's Wedding Portrait - First Colour

Now that I have the basic shapes in I've gone over the portrait with a first, pretty rough try at the colours. It's a little strange because they have the identical skin and hair colour (Mennos! They all look the same) but I want to differentiate between them, at least a little. I've lightened his hair a little, which is helped by the balding, so I can work more of the skin tone in. I really need to start a little blending, And definitely darker it up, so I can go in and put the highlights in later. I think I should have started with the base skin colours, more reds and oranges and blues, then put in the lighter tones on top. Oh well, it's early in the portrait, I have lots of room to make corrections. 

Tep's Wedding Portrait - Form

I got right to work on my sister's present (and by right to work, I mean I spent a couple hours picking what tea I should have, rearranging my pastels, and creeping Facebook). The first stage was to put in highlights and shadows, trying to pay more attention to what needed to come toward the viewer (yellow) and what needed to recede (blue). I'm not always god at distinguishing between that, and what's simply lighter or darker. Oh well, it's still a good start:

After that I put in the lights and darks. I used an off-white and purple, because I don't want to desaturate the image too much, which is easy to do when they both have very pale skin and aren't wearing any colour:

Tep's Wedding Portrait

My little sister got married this summer, and I still haven't given her her present! I usually give my friends a painting or drawing they like, and bring it to the wedding. I was a little behind on this one, so I'm doing one of my favourite photos from the wedding in pastels, and I'll either ship it out or hold it hostage until she comes to visit. The reference photo is above, and this is what I've got so far:

I really like this blue-grey paper, and I think it will lend a nice soft colour to the finished product. I'm going to do it in colour using some of the many many other photos taken that day for reference. I intend to make this a little softer and more 'pastely' than the previous pastels I've done. I want to take better advantage of the medium, instead of the very tight style I've used while familiarizing myself with the pastels. It will be a challenge to maintain recognizable portraits while using something closer to my usual loose, painterly style. Stay tuned, we'll see how this all works out!

Beautiful Cousins - Suddenly it All Comes Together

I don't really like blaming my tools, because I think it's the last refuge of people who don't actually know what they're doing, but I didn't have a good white pastel, and I finally made the long walk to the art store, and got a couple hard pastels (white and dark brown, for details), and a nice white with just a tiny bit of yellow, to get the colour right.  I also got a few paper stumps to get the blending right, and help with the little details. I don't know if it was the new tools, or they just gave me a little more confidence, but on this layer everything just sort of fell into place.  The colour is much better and the portraits considerably more accurate. I'm going to give it a couple of days, then maybe go back in and touch things up.

Beautiful Cousins - Details

With most of the colours set I can now go in and add detail on top of the larger areas, in order to bring out the image. I think both their hair worked really well, and the clothing is turning out nicely. I'm still not happy with the drafting of their faces or their skin tone. Also, the flowers are now incredibly bright compared to the rest of the piece, so that will have to change. I think the background is a little distracting, and the colours are incongruous with the people. In other words, I'm not very happy with this picture at the moment. But I'm not done yet. We'll just say it's progressing, so check back for the next incarnation, and we'll see if I manage to pull this off. If I do I can say that this stage was all part of the plan.

Beautiful Cousins - Developing Colours

After blocking in the colours I went back in and started to develop the colours towards their real hues, adding more subtlety to the general colours that went in first. I also put in more darks, to give form to the subjects, and because I want the background colours there when I start layering on top (in the hair, for instance).

It's progressing fairly well, though I seem to have switched tactics halfway through, because it's considerably lighter on the right hand side. Partially this is because I'm giving the girl a slightly different skin tone to differentiate the two, but it's supposed to be more subtle than this. That, of course, comes with the eventual layers. I'd rather have things much starker than necessary to begin with than try to add them in the end. Also, I always work from left to right because I'm right handed and don't want to smudge what I've done before, but sometimes this backfires a little if I change things, or leave off before the entire layer is finished, and this is the result. Oh well! There's lots left to do, I'll fix it eventually.

Beautiful Cousins - Block Colour

I'm attempting this drawing in much the same way I would do an oil painting (since it's referred to as 'pastel painting' it seems like as good an idea as any for only a second attempt at pastel portraits), and after the warms and cools I start blocking in colours. At this stage I can stat seeing where everything is going to develop, theoretically. The faces are really going to need some correction, though, because they've gotten kind of off by now. The impreciseness of pastels is something I'm just not quite getting a hold of. Sometimes I can make it work, and sometimes it just confuses me. Which only means I need more practise, of course. Here's hoping I can pull it off on this one.

Beautiful Cousins - Warm and Cool

I'm drawing this pastel very much the way I would do an oil painting, so the first layer has nothing to do with putting in the colours, just with adding some tonal values, showing what is warm and cool, regardless of what colour they'll be in the end. I like this stage because it really sets outs values for the final piece, and tends to make it simpler in the next few stages in terms of shadows and highlights.

Beautiful Cousins

I took this photo of my lovely cousins at my sister's wedding. I decided to do a pastel of it because they're just too gorgeous to resist. Besides, it's only a portrait and a half, so it doesn't seem too complicated. Right? Famous last words. I haven't done a lot of pastels, and I'm always a little unsure of what colour paper I should pick. I choose a subtle blue-grey for this, which I hope will be in keeping with the mood of the photo. So far, I've just done as detailed a sketch as I could, especially since things will get blurry as soon as I start layering on the pastels.

Lantern Festival

I've had the photo this is based on in mind for something for a long time now. Coincidentally, I've also wanted to try out pastels on black paper ever since I started rewatching Batman: The Animated Series and found out that was how they did the backgrounds.

This was fun just to to work on colour and composition, rather than to strictly follow the photo or work on a portrait. I simplified the background and emphasized the diagonal running top right to bottom left in order to get more movement in the piece. I used stronger, more vibrant colours for those lanterns, but in more contrasting colours to make them pop, and finished them to higher degree then the peripheral lanterns, which I also covered in blue in order to mute the colours that were already there. The one thing I'm not sure of is if I just get another soft white pastel (what always happens to them?) and highlight the light in the middle of the lantern more.

Cousins

I don't use pastels very often, but sometimes they're just appropriate for a nice, soft, intimate portrait. So here's only my third-fifth pastel portrait attempts. I'm very happy with it. I couldn't quite photograph it right, so it looks like my sister has a lot of makeup on she doesn't really, but this is pretty close.