It's always lovely when you get a recommendation and this commission came off the back of an A4 pastel I did a while ago. The owner of this greyhound also walks the dog in the portrait I did! He wanted the same size and medium for his commission so I set too on Ingres cream pastel paper, lightly sketching the main outline before positioning the eyes and ears. I started mapping out areas of colour using Conte Pastel sticks and smudging the pastel right into the 'tooth' of the paper. I tend to work from the top left down to avoid smudging as much as possible, especially when working on light paper with dark colours, and I also like to paint the eyes near the beginning as the portrait hangs on getting these right. In the next stage I worked in different shades of greys, browns and blues into the coat to give it depth, mixing the Conte Pastels with Faber-Castell Pastel Pencils where I needed more detail. I continually check my tonal values with the photo and add blacks, whites and blues accordingly - the top coat had flecks of white and black dotted in to create the texture and detail in the coat. Finally his name and racing name to complete the portrait.
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