Christmas Angel
8"x12"
Pastel
Well I think this was a successful experiment. I put this image in extra large so you could see the texture that is on this face. Remember I started with the 4-tone gray grisaille underpainting and then put the color on the top. Still so surprised at how clean the colors could be on top of those four shades that made up the base coat. Many thanks to Hannah Davies for this excellent reference photo. I just seem to have a weakness for these blue eyed, curly blonde hair types!!
Since I used no finger or tortillion blending, just used other pastels of varying degrees of softness, sides and ends, you can see some of the grays showing through along with the top colors' burnished texture but still he retains the softness that is all child. Definitely think I am going to continue to work on this technique and dare to go darker next time in the underpainting. As many of you know getting dark enough is tough in pastels. I am becoming a believer that underpainting for all types of pastels is necessary to give the depth and continuity. I think I really got a better and more accurate skin tone using this method because the skin really does vary from spot to spot in real life.
Here is one more work-in-progress shot that I started with this morning. You really can see how it goes from dark to light.
Thanks so much for stopping by and taking a look.
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