Figure in Pastel

This is my pastel from my Saturday drawing session. The model Laura, wearing only dreadlocks, posed for 4 Saturdays 3 hours each. This is the second figure in pastel I've ever done, the first being so-so. Ron Johnston, who is leading the class in his studio, gave me some tips on how he starts and works the colors into a pastel drawing. Starting with blues and greens and other deeper colors to define shadow areas and then working the flesh tones over it. Despite the few drawing mistakes of the figure I'm pretty happy with this.

Portrait Sketch

This is Dante, a chef at a few restaurants in Tremont. He's been waiting patiently for a while to get his portrait done. He's wearing his chef hat which is a nice touch. Everyone did a good portrait of him.

Portrait Sketch

Here's a pastel of a musician named David. It's a good likeness but I made his head a little skinny.

North/South Park

This is where North Park and South Park meet in Shaker, close to Horseshoe Lake. Pastel.

Pastel Landscape

This is also Horseshoe Lake from the other side. Of course the painting looks better in person.

Pastel Landscape

This is part of Horseshoe Lake in Shaker nearby, some little kid decided to "wander" into the view to get his picture taken.

Portrait Sketch

Here's a portrait of Mike, who's been waiting a long time to get his portrait done by the group.

Group Photo

Here's Laura with the artists. Second from left is Jack, who comes all the way from Oberlin. Far right is Tim's nephew Shawn, visiting from seattle, and a good artist.

Portrait Sketch

This is Laura's sister Diane, who they call Dino.

Artists and Model

Tim's starting to have a group shot with the model. Left to right is Jia, Howard, Laura our model, Tim in back center, Larry (with hat), Juan, me sitting, and Dustin.

Portrait Sketch

This is Laura, her parents own the famous University Inn restaurant in Tremont, I guess mostly referred to as Sokolowski's.

Our model Kathryn

Our model Kathryn, photo by Tim from his seat. We have our models stare off at the small TV 50 feet away in the bar at the Literary.

Portrait Sketch

Lenny had quite a few friends show up for his sitting. they were a live group but he settled in and stayed still for us.

Portrait Sketch

This is Kathryn, a friend of several artists from the Murray Hill Group that come to Tremont to draw with us. I didn't finish her hair in our 3 hour period, spent most of the time getting her likeness. Just a little bit of pastel in the drawing.

Portrait Sketch

This is Charlotte, black pastel pencil.

Portrait Study

This is Erin, wasn't able to get as far as I like on this one, but I started it thinking I was just going to make it all sanguine, like an old master drawing (for whatever reason) and then added a few reds and yellows at the end of the session.

Three Hour Pastel

Can't remember her name either! Another drawing on this medium value paper I bought. It's hard to get started with the initial drawing since the lighting isn't that good, but I like the way you can add lighter colors sooner and they show up. With the lighter paper I've used it's not until the end when I can put down the lighter colors and you can see them.

Another 3 Hour Study

I can't remember this guys name but he was hilarious, talked the whole time but stayed still enough.

Heck's closeup

The building is a nice red-orange brick with many variations of color and age. I finally found a nice look by applying large dabs of orange, red and blues.

Heck's Cafe in Ohio City

My latest pastel is 14x11, which takes quite a while longer than 8x10. I was waiting all Spring for the trees to fill in, a great day, and not many cars parked all over during lunchtime. I took out a few telephone poles.

Portrait Sketch

This is Michael, his girlfriend also comes in and draws with us while he usually quietly walks around and takes photos of us drawing.

Model

This was for the Wet Canvas website where you draw a portrait photo they post. This was all pastel pencil.

Jay Street Pastel

The last of the Jay Street pastels, 11x14.

Pastel Landscape

Same street looking West on the other side, 10x8.

First Pastel Landscape

This is my first landscape using the Unison landscape set of 36 colors. This street of century homes is close to where I work, and an early Spring had the trees blossoming. I took a reference photo on an overcast day and light rain earlier. Still a little early for the trees to grow in. 8x10

Portrait of AJ

Here's a new portrait on Miliani paper that I bought since it was on sale and thought I would try. It's very texturey even after many layers of pastel. I usually don't like this much texture for portraits but it does give it a nce look.

Lit Artists

Here's a pic from the Friday I missed. The model is the girl at the far left. My drawing of her is a few posts below.

Misc Notes

Some thoughts on pastels I've used: I really like the Unisons and will be using those with my pastel pencils Faber-Castell Pitt and Conte which are a little softer. The Unisons are soft and creamy.

I first bought some basic Rembrandts - they are hard but I liked the texture look on paper. Almost wish I had a portrait set to try out.

Sennelier are very soft but with a crumbly, grainy feel and make a lot of loose particles.

I see how difficult it is to photograph the pastels. Its hard to pick up all the delicate color and you lose the pastel texture look. I think I need to throw more natural light on the paper.

Pastel Portrait of Kristen

Since I missed last Friday's model session I had Tim take a few photos of our model. It took quite a while for the initial drawing since I start with a nice charcoal drawing and like to see all the details at this stage, and then take away the shading before starting with pastel. The likeness was good but not quite right. I kept at it for quite a while, over a few days, fixed the chin, added more hair, and worked on the jaw and it came out great.

Pastel Portrait of Larry

This is the first portrait using the Unisons. Larry is a fellow portrait artist who creates unique color portraits using Prismacolors. I snatched a small blurry photo off of his Facebook page for the reference.

New Unison Pastels

I finally got around to trying some Unison pastels for a portrait. I had bought the Caucasian Portrait set of 8 colors and tried them out on a practice drawing. I really liked the way you can lay down color with these. They are very soft and creamy feeling, not crumbly like the Sennelier I have.

Although I had just a few colors to work with I knew these were the ones to get. I found a great deal on Ebay for the 36 color portrait set and was very happy to get the deal.

The set is a very nice range of colors, light to medium, cool and warm reds, and a good range in the light colors red, green, yellow and blue. Of course there are some darks for shadows and hair in the same colors. The darks are not quite as soft and can be a little grainy if you're using a light touch.

But what impresses me the most is I can can keep laying down light to medium colors right on top of each other and not worry too much of filling up the tooth of the paper. I use my finger to blend the colors and read a great tip of using tissue paper to smooth it out. The tissue also is great at picking up extra color you don't want.

There's still a lot of color experimenting to do, laying down different colors for different tones. I've also used my pastel pencils for detailed areas and also to add some color that are not in the Unison set. I'll also use a charcoal pencil for some small dark areas.

Portrait Sketch

From the Lit over the last month or so.

Pretentious Artists

Portrait Sketch 3 hour

From the Lit over the last month or so.

Portrait Sketch

From the Lit over the last month or so.