Mr. & Mrs. Pastel Final

Mr. & Mrs.

9"x12"

Pastel on Velour Paper

Here is what I think is going to be the final picture of this year just because this next week looks pretty busy.  Boy, what a year for so many things, art included.  In so many ways it seems like it just flew by, but when I start to evalutate 2014 I am sure I'll feel I accomplished many things (that's another upcoming post).  But I wish it would slow down just a little.  But 2015 here we come!!

Thanks again to Gary Jones who shot both of these beauties.  I combined both photos, one black and white and the other color in GIMP, gray scaled both and then found other color references of Ibis to try to get his coloration in.  Paul got some great pictures at the Washington National Zoo of their lion pride so hope to do some of their lions too.

I am hoping that I am starting to get the hang of this paper and that maybe the next picture will be more cohesive as far as technique.  I find that I am changing the pastel application I get braver or more experimental with this paper. 

The velour paper has a nap just like velvet and I think I am learning to exploit that, going with or against the grain creates different effects.  For instance just by accident I figured out how to reviatlize the background so that I don't have to put another layer on it to try to smooth it out.  I was trying to clean up the fly away hairs using a very sharp 4H pencil and realized it stirred the nap bringing back the green color and also loosened the non-green color dust that had landed and taken up residence so that I could thump it off into the garbage can.  (You have to have a light touch as you can actually scrape off the velour - found that out when using a very hard pastel stick, it just scratched off the velour and didn't put any color down).  So kind of used that technique around both animals to roughen up the flat look of the fur.  Might be too delicate to really see that in the pictures.

Thanks much for stopping by and hoping you have a great week.