Self Portrait

Just did this last night, white & grey pastel and charcoal on black pastelmat. I've been meaning to try light on dark for a while, great fun. The reference was a photo my wife took one evening while we were in the Atacama, very strong, low sunlight.


I've found that on my last couple of portraits (this one & pedro) that I'm inclined to think less about what I'm doing, the painting just seems to happen somehow, rather enjoyable but don't know if this is a good thing or not as far as the results go...

Diamond Corner

My first attempt at doing a landscape in pastels. 30 X 40cm grey pastelmat. Again found the discipline of lanscape painting a hard task after the portraits I'm more used to. Started out OK building up the basic colours in carres pastel:

When it came to putting in detail I found my Conte soft pastels a bit dissapointing, even on pastelmat & fixed they just would not lay down the pigment as I wanted. My old scraps of pastel I had left over from my school days are actually much better, fortunately there was enough of them to to finish this, might try some Unison pastels I reckon.


Don't really know what to make of this, I'm reasonably pleased with the result but don't know if it's really what I was after.

Ref photo:

Someone a bit older, Pedro

Finished this last night, carres pastels on yellow pastelmat. Peter Robertson (AKA Pedro) the owner of Port Stephens Farm down in the south of West Falkland. An old man of great character which, I think, comes across in the portrait quite well.

Gabba

Finally my new art materials have arrived, conte soft pastels, carres pastels, pastel pencils, blending stumps, pastelmat...the works! Started this last night on pale grey pastelmat. This is my neice Abagail (calls herself 'Gabba' so now everyone does) age 8 months (ish), never used pastelmat before, amazing stuff. This is not quite finished yet I think.
The 'studio', with all my new goodies! very pleased with them although I am finding the soft conte pastels are surprisingly hard compared to the scraps I had left in my art box (no idea what they were but must have been something quite good I think).
Did a bit more work on Gabba last night, here's the finished version.

Really finished this time!

Right...Confession time...this wasn't finished, having said it was I flipped it on my computer to have a fresh look at it and damn! face was out of balance (too fat on the lit side) so I just fined down the face and did a bit more work round the eyes a bit for a better likeness. It is now mounted, framed and presented now so it really is finished.

Finished!

Finished my baby portrait last night...well...I'm not going to do any more to it anyway, when is a painting ever really finished? Quite pleased with this, my 6th effort at portraiture. I am enjoying doing them but really must have a go at other subjects.

Here is my 'studio' (aka: dining table) with the painting in progress, a little bird told me I'll be getting an easel for my birthday though.
:)

progress on the baby portrait

Getting there now I think, reshaped the nose & mouth and knocked back the contrast a little. A bit more work this evening should do it I reckon.

Baby portrait

Portrait of my baby nephew, soft pastels (as ever). This is taken from a photo that my father has that caught my eye, dark fabric behind and lit strongly from the left. Not finished yet but getting there (I hope)

charcoal underpainting:

....and progress so far with the pastels, mouth and shadows of the right cheek are wrong I think, more work needed.