One of the commissions I am working on at the beginning of this year is of this lovely dog called Sacha. It has been commissioned for a special birthday and the owner wanted Sacha with the flowering clematis in the background. I chose a dark brown Ingres Pastel paper and sketched the outline which was tricky to see as graphite doesn't show well on this paper. I also wanted Sacha to be looking at the viewer as she wasn't quite in the photo. When I was more certain of the composition I firmed up the outline with a cream pastel pencil. Next I blocked in the main tonal areas, filled in the lighter areas with cream and white and worked it into the paper to give me a base to work from. Then I started to layer up the colours, working and blending each layer and trying not to go over the edges!! I used pastel pencils to draw more of the details and smudged with a blending stick. When the light areas were established I decided to put in the shadows using black and dark brown before moving on to block in the light areas of the flowers and foliage. More layers of increasing detail were applied before finally adding the shadows and strengthening the tonal values.
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