Pastel portrait of a young father teaching his daughter to fish.

Pastel painting 8 inches x 10 inches  SOLD

I just finished this pastel portrait for a client who wanted a special present for her husband on Father’s Day. They were very happy with the results. I am doing more and more pastel commissions and watercolor commissions and absolutely loving the process. There’s nothing like creating a piece of art that makes someone happy!

I’d like to offer a special incentive for my regular blog viewers. If you send a commission client my way, I will happily let you chose one of my small artworks for your very own!

Contact me on my website and we can talk!

Pastel portrait painting of a beautiful young woman in pink.

Pastel painting 8.5 inches x 11 inches   $200

Please contact me if you are interested in similar artwork.

Marie was a wonderful model at our recent portrait painting session. She was a newbie, not used to the grueling hours of sitting motionless, but she did a fine job! This pastel painting was done over a 2 hour period with short breaks every half hour or so. After years of nude figure drawing, its fun to draw people with clothes on every once in a while!

Charcoal sketch of a young man thinking

Pastel painting 11 inches x 14 inches $100

Please contact me if you are interested in similar artwork.

We are taking a short vacation “up north” over the holiday weekend so I thought I would post another one of the figure drawings I did at our last session. In this quick sketch I wanted to focus on light and shadow so I used only charcoal and white pastel. This pose kind of reminded me of Rodin’s “The Thinker”. There’s a large cast of it in front of the Detroit Institue of Arts.

Paste portrait of a young male.

Pastel painting 9 inches x 12 inches $100

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Finally made it to a figure drawing session this weekend after weeks of playing hookey and painting plein aire landscapes instead. We had a new male model with an interesting face so I decided to do a pastel portrait. We only have 20 minutes to capture a quick likeness. I worked on some deep purple, textured stock that our advertising agency had received from a paper company. You have to kinda work in reverse when you are drawing on dark paper. Its good practice for seeing the lights and darks of a subject.

Sample commission paintings of pet portraits

I have really fallen in love with painting pastel pet portraits. So, being the marketing freak that I am, I decided to create a printed card to advertise my services. The image above shows just a few of the very personal pieces I’ve painted in the last few months.

Pastel is a wonderful medium for this type of work. It is very soft and expressive, perfect for catching the special characteristics of dogs, cats, horses and other furry creatures. Each of these portraits are 8 x 10 inches but I am comfortable working larger or smaller depending on my client’s needs. I have been distributing the cards at pet stores, shows and grooming businesses and have gotten a wonderful response so far. If you know someone who would like to have a favorite pet or other animal made into art, please let me know!

Pastel portait of an young soldier.

Pastel painting 12 inches x 18 inches $200

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This week’s model was a handsome young man who had just signed up for military service. His pose seemed very strong and assured for someone so young. It was a 2 hour pose so I had time to layer color and build up a textured surface on this pastel portrait. I worked on leaving some of the drawing loose and unfinished so the viewer’s eye would be drawn to the soldier’s chest and face.

Pastel portrait of a woman in a bar wench costume

Pastel painting 10 inches x 14 inches $200

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In our portrait session this week we had a model dressed as a Renaissance bar wench! What a hoot! She has lots of different historic costumes and comes in a different one each week. This pastel portrait took about and hour and forty-five minutes. Just enough to get a quick likeness and not overwork it too much. I love to watch a human face grow from just a few marks on paper. Luckily, pastel painting is a very forgiving medium. If you don’t get the nose just right, you can rub it down and redraw.

Pastel painting of a young woman

Pastel painting 10 inches x 14 inches $200

Please contact me if you are interested in similar artwork.

I visited a new portrait session on Monday and had a great time painting with the group! This young woman, although not a professional model, was so patient with all of the artists and held the pose for over two hours with only a few breaks. I understand that sometimes the models for this group come in costume! Absolutely cool! I’m very interested in continuing to work on pastel portraits so this will be a great chance for me to practice.

Pastel portrait of a golden retriever

Pastel painting 8 inches x 10 inches SOLD

Please contact me if you are interested in similar artwork or a commission

One more pet portrait to add to the group! Our dear friends have 2 golden retrievers and a blood hound. They are the sweetest animals around and their owners adore them. Every time our friends come to visit they bring our dog a little treat. To thank them, I did a pastel painting of one of their pups basking in the sun. Can’t you just tell what a lover he is by his big, happy smile?

Pastel painting of a brown lab

Pastel painting 8 inches x 10 inches SOLD

Please contact me if you are interested in similar artwork or a commission

My friend’s beautiful brown lab died a while ago. She was a really special dog and missed by the whole family– especially her husband. She asked me to create a pastel portrait of Yoshi  as a special gift for him. It was a challenge to catch just the right personality since I had never met the pup, but my friend says this commission is right on. I was so happy to do it for them!

Pastel portrait of a beautiful young woman

Please contact me if you are interested in portraits of people or animals!

This is the pastel portrait of my oldest niece, Jessica. I really like to do portrait work from life, but these days, it seems that no one is willing to sit for hours while I layer the color on paper. Not even my own family!  I took multiple photos of each of the girls at Christmas break and used various shots to come up with their final portraits. I know them both well and I loved capturing the little sparkles in their eyes…

Pastel portrait of a young woman

Please contact me if you are interested in portraits of people or animals!

A while ago, I painted two pastel portraits of my nieces for my sisters birthday. I finally had a chance to give them to her last week so I thought I would post them. Portraits are fun to do but really  have to be “right on”. My sister loved them and her daughters were happy with them, too. They want giclee prints for their own homes!

I will post Jess’ portrait next…