Portrait of a Weimaraner

I have been working on a few commissions at the same time at the moment and this is a relatively small pastel (9 x 12") of a Weimaraner called Daisy. Apparently she loves to sleep a lot so the chosen pose was of her just about to drop off. I chose a beige velour pastel paper both for the texture and colour as I wanted to create a soft, warm portrait with a seemingly limited palette. I started by blocking in the main lights and darks with my Conte soft pastels. In stage two I added yellow ochre and other bright oranges and yellows as well as a warm burgundy brown into the shadows. The paper surface doesn't require any blending so I kept on working more pastels into the portrait until moving on to using pastel pencils from stage three onwards. Here I flicked in all sorts of shades of browns, oranges, yellows and whites, darkening up the shadows and details before finally adding some texture to the top of the cushion and my signature!