In my last post, Create 6eauty by doing some prep work Part 1, I wrote about how the pastelist, Alain Picard, recommends to draw a thumbnail sketch to create the composition you are looking for and to understand the values of the reference photo. I decided to draw a thumbnail sketch of my son’s stuffed animal so I can eventually draw a pastel portrait. The sketch turned out really well, and I definitely understood the values better by completing that step.
Today, I finished the next step which is to do a small color study with pastels using the thumbnail sketch as a reference to play around with color. Alain says by using a small piece of paper, you can experiment with bolder colors and can have a better idea of what you want the final work to look like. Alain talks about this starting at 1:10 in this video-https://youtu.be/-xGF0bvI3Ik
Since he recommends playing with color, I tried one with a blue background and one with a blue-green background, instead of the white background in the reference picture. Alain was right! I found that I referred to the thumbnail much more than the reference photo and it made so much more sense to me because I had done the prep work. Here are the small color studies…
Create 6eauty by doing some prep work!
I may complete a few more of these color studies before moving to the next step to help me decide on the background color. Look out for my next post which will be the final portrait!
Which color do you like the best for the background? Blue or blue-green?
CREATE 6eauty 