The Sherwoods Family Portrait

The portrait of these three siblings is now finished. Since the last blog entry I have been working more colours onto the two sister's faces, blending each layer, taking care not to lose the main features as the skin tones are merged. Teeth are the hardest to get right as they need shaping and colouring very precisely otherwise they can easily look crooked, rotten or bleached and I had to imagine what Luke's teeth might look like without his brace. When the picture gets to this stage I work on all three faces together to ensure they all belong with each other and don't look like individual portraits. I work my way through the spectrum of colours, picking a pastel pencil and marking each face where I see that colour before, choosing another pencil. Finally, the smallest adjustments are made to shapes, colours and tones of eyes, noses, mouths and hair strands, with purples and browns used to darken the shadows.

The Sherwoods - a family portrait in pastel

This latest portrait is a surprise 50th birthday present for the proud father of these three siblings, commissioned by his wife, so shhhhh, don't tell him! The photos were taken on the same day in the same room so the light source is the same and despite there being other photos of them all together, the favoured expressions are of them separate from each other. I put together the composition in Photoshop so they could all agree and then drew each of them onto a 16 x 19.5" sheet of Ingres cream pastel paper. When I was happy with the likeness I started blocking in the main colours in Luke's face and hair, blending together various shades of pink, orange tones and brown. His eyes are very green at this point and the brace on his teeth is not being painted in so his teeth look brilliant white. When the first two or three layers were laid down and blended in I moved onto Anna's hair and face, again blocking in the main areas of colour and tone. There's not much detail at this stage but attention still has to be paid to the shapes in the face as the drawing gradually disappears under the layers of pastel. You can see at each stage that I've been revisiting Luke's face, as working on other areas, leaving the painting and returning, refreshes my eyes. I can immediately see where improvements are needed and by working from the top down I reduce the risk of smudging the painting too much. I have taken a couple more pictures of the process with Laura's face, so you can see the pale pink and white of her skin on the first layer being worked in, before the shadows are placed. The start of any painting is exciting as the blank paper is transformed with the first few layers of pastel. Now comes the tricky bit of making them really come to life! Watch this space...

Portrait of Tom

Hooray! The portrait of Tom is finally complete and ready for the Easter break. I'm really pleased with it now but it has been a battle: I had trouble with the shirt as the original photo had his shoulder up, causing the shirt to crease in a way that looked wrong with the shoulder down. Tom had kindly sent lots of photos of him in different shirts but I wanted the colours to complement the portrait I previously painted of Linda. A plain shirt looked too plain so I opted for a green check and ended up re-painting the lines about five times. I even resorted to getting my husband to model a stripy shirt for me so I could work out how the creases fell and how the contours of the check pattern would work. That'll teach me!! Obviously the main part of the portrait is Tom's face and particularly his eyes so most of the glazed layers of paint went into his face - the shadows and laughter lines. This goes through a process of darkening areas then smoothing them into the surrounding area using a series of scumble glazes. These glazes range from bright purple, red and orange to dark brown, grey and green. Green works surprisingly well in the shadows although it looks pretty scary when first applied - Tom was the Incredible Hulk for a time! It has been sitting on my easel for a while as I have been tweaking the background, the shirt, adding a few more grey hairs to Tom (and to me) but I'm really pleased with the final outcome and hope Tom feels the same.

Maude - wire haired dachshund pastel

This is Maude, a wire haired dachshund, who lives on the other side of Chichester. Her owners didn't have many photos of her so as part of the commission, I took my camera and we encouraged her to pose in the comfort of her own home. She was very compliant (especially when bribed with a few treats!). I chose a dark cream Ingres pastel paper size 12x16" and sketched her features in graphite. Then using a white and cream pastel I blocked in the areas that had the most light, then took a brown and black pastel and blocked in the darkest areas. I like to concentrate on the eyes early on in the painting as they are crucial to finding a likeness. The first few layers of pastel were smudged into the background and the process repeated, this time adding browns, ochres, oranges and greys. Once happy with the general look I reached for my pastel pencils to put the finer details of the coat and individual hairs to complete the portrait.

A Portrait of Tom

This portrait of Tom is to go with the portrait he commissioned of Linda earlier in the year. He had talked about perhaps getting his own painted too and I wanted the backgrounds to match. So before I sent him the finished painting of Linda I made a note on another canvas of the colours I used. As it happens, the photo I'm mainly working from is the same one used for Linda so at least the lighting is the same which makes it easier for me to match skin tones etc. After sketching his face onto the partly painted box canvas I started to paint in the main features and shadows. I blocked in the shirt and put pink on the background as that's how I started the portrait of Linda. I mixed up skin tones to get rid of most of the white of the canvas so that I can see subtle shades and hues later. Then I worked on the background to get as much of the colour to work as I remembered. I think I've already captured his likeness, I just hope I can keep it through the middle stages! It's the Christmas break now so I've downed tools until next year. Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Kobi and Diesel finished pastel

This is the finished portrait of Kobi and Diesel along with coloured collars. In the final stages of the pastel portraits a lot of additional layers of pastel are added but very little seems to change on the photos, so I tend to take the photos further apart. You can perhaps 'spot the difference' around their muzzles and neck compared to the initial stages. I hope I've captured their personalities along with their shiny coats!

Kobi and Diesel pastel

My latest pastel commission of Kobi and Diesel starts with a photo of them both looking very happy in the back of their car. The sunlight has bleached out some of the details so other photos have been used as reference alongside. After sketching their heads closer together onto A3 Ingres Pastel Paper I used my larger Conte pastel sticks to block in the light and coloured areas of the dogs. This layer was blended and corrected before black and grey areas added to the shadow areas very carefully. I swapped between Conte pastels and pastel pencils to ensure accuracy and blended with white into the highlights. They are both coming on quite well but I need to know whether to include their collars before continuing with the detail.