Baby, Baby pastel lion portrait

Baby, Baby

15.5"x12"

Pastel

Well I should know myself well enough by now that in the winter when I want to have a big pity party - watch out!!!  Really sick isn't far behind and this has been no exception.  I have felt it coming on for a couple of weeks and it finally got me, probably second only second time since I retired.  Of course, being in the doctors office - there are sick people there you know - didn't really help either.  Anyway, good news is I think I am on the mend and can get excited about doing my daily sketching again.

This is a photo I pulled from PMP quite a while ago, it is from Glennis Watson, a wonderful Scottish artist.   I knew I wanted to do it, just hadn't gotten around to it.  When I felt up to painting a little, I fell in love again with these eyes.  So decided it was time to try the pastel mat as the surface again.  I think I really am going to enjoy it, the feel between velour and sand paper.  I also wanted to see if I could do something different in the background and tried pan pastels drawing circles of color.  I saw Lachri do a youtube on acrylic backgrounds, think she calls it bokeh, which she usually does with an airbrush.  I did it with my pan pastels - man I love those things.   I also never knew you could get an airbrush kit for around $30 that uses canned air instead of the big compressor - hmmm could be one in my future now that summer is coming and I could use the porch!!

Here you can see my beginning stages - I was using a pinkish-apricot colored mat, laid first pastel layer over it and then went in with the alcohol to wash it out and start the base.  It didn't work exactly as I expected, but pastel mat did take liquid ok.  It gave me some unexpected textural stroke marks (came in handy in the wood pieces) and think I may not have had enough pastel on the paper to start the wash as in parts it just kind of melted away. (Maybe because I used pans in the background that is why it melted away)  Got to say though that using the wash in the darkest dark areas really makes it a lot easier to get dark darks in the finished picture, something that is difficult for pastel.  Most of the logs came that dark with only one layer of pan pastel darks combination over the alcohol wash base.

Anyway I was off and running.  I think I just pretty much worked him in sections putting in the logs platform he is laying on last.  Since I could use the pan pastels this dark section didn't migrate like it normally would try to do with traditional pastels.  Love, love those pans.

Thanks much for stopping by.