Goodness me, I'd forgotten how hard this can be! This should have taken me 30 minutes, but I spent a good hour on this, and went into too much detail (as usual). The medium here is Conte pastels, but being quite chunky sticks, I think it's impossible to get a lot of detail with them, and they are really, really messy!
This is on a large scale (A2) cartridge paper. My life drawing tutor from way back would not let us use any smaller than this, and I can see why, as with larger sheets you feel less restricted and end up with a looser drawing.
This has been an interesting little exercise, but I feel that I would have done a much better job if I'd have stuck to watercolour. The only point here being that, if I'd have used watercolour, I would have probably made the same old mistakes, whereas with pastel, I've managed to make a whole lot of NEW mistakes!
Nice study Frank. It's hard to believe you haven't done one of these for 15 years. Great job.
ReplyDeleteI think it's great! I like how the light hits her skin, with that paler ring of light around her tummy. I think pastel is really forgiving - far more so than watercolour and it's always good to step away from the norm from time to time :0)
ReplyDeleteThanks John, given the chance I would rather have worked from the real thing but there never seems to be any classes around here these days.
ReplyDeleteYes Sandra, you can mull pastel around a bit with your finger and go over the top if you spray with sealer.
They have some really good photographers at Pixellovely.