This is Sonny, a Jardine's parrot, nibbling on a malted milk biscuit (from what I can make out!). The pastel portrait commissioned was quite big (16 x 20") and the photo was very small (taken with a phone), which when enlarged went all pixelated. The customer sent me lots of others and a bird fanatic friend of mine identified Sonny as a Jardine's parrot. She sent me links to other photos which gave me more detail to work with so the portrait could begin... I sketched the pose, blocked in the main areas of colour and gently smudged them together to form a base and prevent the paper showing through. Next I concentrated on tonal values adding white to highlight the feathers and strong blacks to emphasise the markings and shadows. I put the vertical bars of the cage in using a grey and a black pastel pencil alongside a ruler which created lots of dust and smudging which I carefully removed before the next phase. I decided not to draw any horizontal bars as I quite liked the simplicity of the vertical bars hinting at the cage. There are some beautifully vibrant colours in his feathers which I mixed using green, yellow and blue with touches of scarlet and orange, blending the colours with the pastels themselves to prevent them from going muddy. Finally I had to make a trip to the corner shop to buy a packet of malted milk biscuits for reference purposes only of course. Half the packet demolished and a cup of tea later (I'd forgotten how good they were!) the biscuit was nearly finished... and then the packet was!!!
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