My God. It Worked.
Sometime last night after finishing Operation: Human Photocopier [thank you spyramy for that one] I realized my pastels had collected a skim of dust and were begging to be used again. But these pastels and I have a love/hate relationship. For one, they're the soft, chalky, really fat [think charcoal stick, not pencil] kind, so they smudge in such a loooooovely way but are Teh Suck when it comes to details. So they are wonderful for large, dramatic pieces, but I draw faces...
And faces - faces require details.
So, love/hate. Faces and pastels either turn out as tragedy or triumph, and let me tell you, the tragedy almost always wins! But I decided, what the heck, it's time to try them out again. So I decided to take as a reference what is probably my favorite picture on my comp right now. [In retrospect, this might not have been a good idea. But I figured if it was going to work, it better be an end result that I liked, right?] I whipped up a sketch - didn't take as much time on it as I usually do, because the pencil was just for a guideline - and then, as Lestat would say, "plunged into the stream."
Let me tell you there were moments when I was absolutely sure I was going the "tragedy" route, crashing and burning to make the Hindenburg look pretty. It didn't help that I decided I would keep a couple of 'progress pictures' along the way to track how it changed. [cringe!]
But, My God, It Worked.
I only wish I had a decent camera for the thing.
final ~ about 8" x 10"
I promise a decent shot of it when I have secured aforementioned camera. In the meantime... must protect page... must not smudge...!
Editing to say: the 'color' of the page changes because I was drawing by the window, and a thunderstorm rolled through in the middle. So it got darker and darker, and then light again when it cleared up. The natural lighting still does odd things to the page - the area around his eyes isn't actually as 'light' as the last shot makes it seem - but I can't do anything about it till Thurs.
And faces - faces require details.
So, love/hate. Faces and pastels either turn out as tragedy or triumph, and let me tell you, the tragedy almost always wins! But I decided, what the heck, it's time to try them out again. So I decided to take as a reference what is probably my favorite picture on my comp right now. [In retrospect, this might not have been a good idea. But I figured if it was going to work, it better be an end result that I liked, right?] I whipped up a sketch - didn't take as much time on it as I usually do, because the pencil was just for a guideline - and then, as Lestat would say, "plunged into the stream."
Let me tell you there were moments when I was absolutely sure I was going the "tragedy" route, crashing and burning to make the Hindenburg look pretty. It didn't help that I decided I would keep a couple of 'progress pictures' along the way to track how it changed. [cringe!]
But, My God, It Worked.
I only wish I had a decent camera for the thing.
final ~ about 8" x 10"
I promise a decent shot of it when I have secured aforementioned camera. In the meantime... must protect page... must not smudge...!
Editing to say: the 'color' of the page changes because I was drawing by the window, and a thunderstorm rolled through in the middle. So it got darker and darker, and then light again when it cleared up. The natural lighting still does odd things to the page - the area around his eyes isn't actually as 'light' as the last shot makes it seem - but I can't do anything about it till Thurs.