I now have an official "process" of doing pastel portraits, and tonight I thought I'd test it by "making it tough." By that, I mean, I did a VERY fast pencil "layout," and then quickly transferred the (rather inferior) sketch to the velour paper for the actual painting part. Of course, the sketch was a bit "off" here and there, but I wanted to test my ability to "fix" poor drawings (from a poor photograph) during the pastel stage. You see, the velour paper is HORRIBLE when you're trying to fix mistakes, so I thought a test of its limits would be a good educational experience. You can see in the one photo how another artist painted this girl (with totally different lighting), and then you can see how I painted her. The cool thing is, the other artist is a successful French artist who does these things "live" down in the Caribbean (although he's since moved to France), and that is EXACTLY what I want to do. (Visit his website at www.pastel-portraits.com.) Awesome artist.
...Anyway, I'm happy, in a sense, and unhappy, too. I wasn't able to fix the fundamental flaws in the likeness/headshape/etc., but then again, I think it just might be acceptable in a "live" situation. Of course, a more careful initial pencil layout sketch would aid enormously. ...Also, check-out the crazy flash lighting I had to figure-out. That was actually serious fun. Lots of unexpected reds and oranges and yellows in the face, and abrupt value changes.
1 comment:
Hey Tim,
This is pretty awesome.. for being a test for educational experience as you said. That rocks! I'll add my other comments in the post above.
Post a Comment