Portraiture in pastel

Portraiture in pastel information and techniques used in portraiture in pastel
	Portraiture in pastels and here I have painted over the burnt umber on the cheek with a medium cerulean blue and then blended this area with my finger, always be aware of what the texture of a person's skin looks like, does it look soft or craggy, liney or covered in pot holes only you can decide.
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	I've painted over the burnt umber of the eyes with cerulean blue because the eyes are blue and over the lips with a dark cadmium red. To get the intricate shapes inside the ear it is best to use a pastel pencil to form the shapes rather than using thick lumps of pastel, after the initial shapes have been put in with the pencil you can then go in with a pastel. A dark cerulean blue has been added over the burnt umber in the hair to make it dark and cool.
	After initial dark umber strokes in the hair I am now going in with yellow ochre and all over the portrait there has been more development but everything is still rather basic at this point. As in all painting whether it is with oils, acrylic or pastel it is a build up of tone and colour, overpainting on previously painted colours.
	A bit more pastel colour has been overpainted into the hair and areas on the face have been modelled more. I started on the polo neck sweater with a light cerulean blue and a burnt umber for the dark areas, always trying to use just a few basic colours. At first use one red and variations of this red and maybe a brown and a blue with variations of these colours. It is a mistake to use loads of different colours in a portrait, if you see other unrelated colours in the live model apart from the basic colours you can suggest these at the end of the portrait.
	All it is now is observation and to develop areas more, always move all over the portrait, do a bit in one part then move to somewhere else, never complete one part and then move onto the next part and finish that. Everything has to move together and build up into a crescendo and at the end you can add highlights and finishing touches. Some artists might say that they add highlights to the eyes at the very end of the portrait and they do this in all portraits that they do. I put the highlights in this portrait about three quarters of the way through why! because I felt it was time to put them in and I think that if you really feel what you want to do in a portrait as you go along rather than methodically, routinely or consciously putting things in you will get along a lot better in your portraiture.
	In this example you can see how the hair breaks up the ear, if it didn't the ear would look more cut out. This is a good example of hard and soft edges, the edge of the ear is soft where the hair cuts through the ear then there is an hard edge at the top of and at the left side of the ear. You then come down the left side of the ear where it softens into the hair again and the hard edge reappears albeit softer as it meets the jaw bone.
	Here is the finished portrait and you feel that everything is there, the features are properly placed and related to each other, I also altered the movement of the eyes as they were looking down in the photograph but I felt that the eyes would look better looking straight on. Never be afraid to alter things in your portrait if you feel it will make it look and feel better. The yellow background compliments the blue sweater and headband and in turn the blues compliment the skin tones.
	A close up of the portrait and notice the cool blue tones inside the warm cheek tones, a contrast of warm and cool colours is what you want in a portrait to give it vibrancy. Look at the reflected light under the jaw line which isn't in the photograph but it is a good idea to add reflected light especially when the jaw and neck areas are all in shadow, it separates both areas and defines where the jaw line is. We hope you have enjoyed this pencil measurement technique demonstration.
DVD Portraiture in pastel.	You might like to purchase a 45 minute DVD (Approx) showing pencil measuring technique and how the artist uses a pencil to correctly measure the features of the face. Only - £11.95 - $22.00 Paypal will automatically convert to your currency. See more DVDs/CDs >>> Girl in pencil>> <<Back Home Email us even if its just for a chat We reply to you today.