This Christmas commission is a detailed black and white sketch to use as a study for further paintings and shows the progression completed on Murano mid-grey A3 pastel paper. I started by creating some sketches to decide on the crop of the photo then with a few guidelines, started blocking in the white, blending with my finger to lose the texture of the paper and establishing the lightest areas. Next, I used a black Conte stick to map out the dark areas fairly swiftly but accurately. I blended roughly with my finger and overlapped some of the black onto the white to smooth out the skin tones taking care not to smudge the background. The features were added with more accuracy using a black Faber Castell pastel pencil before the whole portrait was carefully blended and adjusted with more white or black pastel to subtly deepen or lighten each area. The difference between the last three stages takes a lot longer than the first few stages - the changes are less dramatic and appear minimal but make a massive amount of difference to the expressions on the finished portrait.
×