These three canine friends are now complete - layers of pastel have been applied over a period of days. Following on from the last blog entry, as I had already laid the base foundation of colour, I took my black pastel and focussed attention on the dogs' faces. I spent time making sure I captured the character and getting their features down accurately. I also used brown and grey pastel pencils to pick out the highlights. I used pinks, reds, purples and browns on their tongues and took care not to smudge the black to totally change the expression on each face. The next stage was to look at the general highlights and shadows so I put marks into the shadows using a dark brown pastel and white and cream for the light areas. I smudged in dark shadows under the dogs and having decided not to get more photos of their paws or introduce green grass, I created a texture for them to stand on that used the same colours as their coats. The last stage involves assessing the picture as a whole, adding more texture, balancing tonal values and sharpening up details. I'll look at it again tomorrow but I've signed it off as finished.
