Self Portrait 2020, 20″ x 16″, Pastel Premiere Italian clay

Charcoal drawing

First stages with color

Adding the hair

Hello Friends. I trust you are all still well.  I’ve been keeping in touch with the 20+ students that I had over the winter and several of them did really nice self portraits. So I decided it was time for me to take the challenge.  I have never done a portrait in pastel!  I did some in colored pencil back in the 80s but when I tried to do one in pastel, early in my time with the medium, it was a disaster.  So I decided it was time!

First I tried working from a photo that was taken over 12 years ago.  There was nothing particularly dynamic or interesting about it.  I got the measurements wrong in the face and it came out rather badly.  I plan to brush/wash it off–it’s on Wallis Belgian Mist.

Then last week I took some selfies and found one that I really liked with my head at an angle and my hair doing interesting things.  So I decided to give it a try.  I realized that I had 10 sheets of Pastel Premiere that I purchased to use in the Sally Strand workshop, which would have been this week!  It’s a perfect surface for a vignette portrait like this.  Very easy to work on and the color is lovely.

I spent all Saturday afternoon doing the drawing, first in graphite on drawing paper, then with charcoal on the pastel paper.  I immediately realized how much better charcoal is for doing the drawing for the painting. It’s so easy to change and work with.  I worked and worked and finally got my chin really straight and got the thinness of my face right. Then it started to look like me.

Then I was afraid to touch it!  I haven’t done drawings like this in a long time and realized how lovely it is to do this sort of drawing.  But I didn’t want to leave it at that!  So today I took the plunge and began adding color.  All of the colors in the face are Giraults–a mix of warmish pinks, oranges, browns, and a number of different warm greens.  The only soft pastel is in the hair.

When I did my original portrait, several weeks ago, I found that I had to keep reworking, brushing off, completely lost the drawing.  This time I was careful, knowing that the drawing was accurate. I wish I could be one of those brave portrait artists, like Christine Swann and Diane Rappisi, who Ive watched start out with a few charcoal lines and two values of color.  But, I’m NOT a portrait artist and I figure I can do this one the best way I can.  So I was happy not to lose the drawing.  And by using Giraults, I kept the pastel from getting cakey.

I wanted to keep the hair and clothing fairly loose and suggestive so didn’t labor over it too much.

I’m really happy with this attempt!  And yesterday I was able to set up a Youtube channel and put my first very crude video on it. It’s nothing I want to advertise a lot at this point, but I’m learning a lot!  This is a good time to be challenging ourselves in order to keep from worrying about other things.  I hope you are finding your own worthwhile challenges.