Pastel portrait painting of a young woman from the waist up.

Pastel painting 11 inches x 17 inches

Unfortunately, I didn’t catch the name of our figure drawing model a couple of weeks ago. But she was so professional and had mentioned that she had done quite a bit of modeling throughout the county, so I titled this pastel portrait Pro!

This artwork was created with
Paper: Canson Mi-Tients Burgundy Paper
Medium: Rembrandt Pastels and Sennelier Pastels

Pastel portrait painting of a young woman

Pastel painting 11 inches x 17 inches

I’ve been so consumed with my show of pastel and watercolor paintings of Italy, I’ve been neglecting our figure drawing sessions. A couple of weeks ago, I finally got back in the groove. We had a beautiful model who really inspired me. In this pastel portrait I tried to capture a little of the magic she exuded. She seemed so calm on the outside but gave off an inner sparkle!

This artwork was created with
Paper: Canson Mi-Tients Burgundy Paper
Medium: Rembrandt Pastels and Sennelier Pastels

Black and white pastel portrait of a woman.

Pastel painting 12 inches x 18 inches

Its been at lease a month since I have been to my figure drawing session. Between traveling, advertising work, family and framing for the upcoming show, I just haven’t been able to get it together to go to class. When I walked in today, I didn’t even know if I remembered how to draw! I decided to simplify and eliminate the color for this pastel portrait I’ve painted Misty once before, a couple of months ago. She is a great model and was kind enough to come visit us again. Below is my previous portrait of her…

This artwork was created with:
Paper: Canson Mi-Tients Steel Gray Paper
Medium: Black and White Rembrandt Pastels

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Pastel portrait of a man in sunlight.

Pastel painting 11 inches x 17 inches

Monday we had a very different type of figure drawing session. Joe and his wife Millie hosted an outdoor class at their beautiful home near Whitmore Lake. We had two very attractive models, Paul and Linda, who were willing to sit for us outside. Paul braved the direct sun, sitting on a stone stairway while half of us captured his image.  I kicked into gear doing exactly the same type of pastel portrait I would have done if we were in the studio but with REAL light illuminating the model. I was happy with the outcome but wish I would have tried a full body pose, more integrated into the lovely surroundings. Oh, well, live and learn!

Afterwards we had a pizza party with home made gazpacho, cookies and ice cream. Now that’s the way to celebrate a fun day of creating art!

Another celebration to mention. I was just notified that my painting, Orchard 1 was given the Art Times Award at the Pastel Society of America Exhibition in New York City. I was so excited to be juried in–and overjoyed to be honored with an award!

This artwork was created with
Paper: Canson Mi-Tients Steel Gray Paper
Medium: Rembrandt Pastels and Sennelier Pastels

Pastel portrait of a young football player

Pastel painting 12 inches x 18 inches

All male testosterone in figure drawing session last week! This strapping young football player posed in his uniform for the class. In this pastel portrait I decided to take a step back from all the color I usually use, and work only in black and white pastel.

Maybe I was overloaded from the 5 hours it took me to completely revamp my pastel set-up in my studio. I’ve known for a long time that I really needed to take off the papers on each stick and arrange all of them by color and value–not by brand, the way I had for years. Everything I’ve read says that this is the best way to work. I finally bucked up and did it. I broke each pastel in half and put one half with the code number on it in a storage box. Now, when I run out of a color, I can go to my stock, get a new stick, and know which pastel to reorder at Dick Blick’s.  I usually use NuPastels and a variety of soft pastels. Here’s what my new set-up looks like:

This artwork was created with:
Paper: Canson Mi-Tients Steel Gray Paper
Medium: Black and White Rembrandt Pastels

Pastel portrait painting of a young blond teenager.

Pastel painting 11 inches x 17 inches

We had a lovely young teenage girl pose for us last week at our figure drawing session. She is a neighbor of a wonderful pastel artist and teacher in our group, Janet Kohler. (some of Janet’s work can be seen here.) Sarah was dressed in purple and we set her up against a purple backdrop. Wow! With her blond hair and pale skin tones, the color just popped in my pastel portrait of her!

This artwork was created with
Paper: Canson Mi-Tients Steel Gray Paper
Medium: Rembrandt Pastels

Pastel portrait painting of a young girl reading.

Pastel painting 11 inches x 17 inches

We’ve been painting alot of children and teenagers in our figure drawing sessions this summer. The kids are out of school and its a perfect time to capture them in pastel portraits.  This young lady is actually a daughter of one of our painters. She sat quietly and read for over 2 hours and barely moved! It was interesting to try and capture her likeness without seeing her eyes. Usually eyes are such a large (and difficult!) part of capturing someone’s likeness…

Pastel portrait of a young girl in profile.

Pastel painting 12 inches x 14 inches

Alea is a beautiful young girl who has posed for us a few times at our figure drawing sessions, sometimes with her mother and sometimes alone. She does a great job of holding the pose, especially for someone so young.  All the portrait artists in class adore her…

Pastel portrait of a woman in gardening gear.

Pastel painting 13 inches x 14 inches

I painted this pastel portrait the week before our trip out west. Carol came all decked out in garden wear so in my figure drawing of her, I envisioned her in a lovely, plant-filled location.

Pastel portrait painting of a young woman

Pastel painting 12 inches x 17 inches

No figure drawing session today because of the holiday, but last week I painted this pastel portrait of our lovely model. Thought I had her captured for a moment, but then I seemed to lose it a bit… Funny thing with portraits, a good likeness is VERY important if you are working to please a patron. But sometimes it is just fun to play with the figure and see how it comes out. After all, if the viewer doesn’t actually know the model, they cannot be disappointed if the portrait isn’t an exact replica of the person. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

Pastel portrait painting of an African American woman

Pastel painting 12 inches x 17 inches

We were happy to have Marge as our model again at our figure drawing session on Monday. This is the third time I’ve painted her pastel portrait and I’ve loved it every time. She’s definitely one of my favorites. She has wonderful facial structure and lovely skin tones. I think this is the closest likeness I’ve captured of her.

I finally realized today that the way I create portraits is very much like creating a clay sculpture. I start with an almost skeletal sketch of the protruding and receding bone structure, cheeks, nose, chin, eye sockets, etc. Then I start adding skin and slowly build up the light areas that come forward. It was a bit of a revelation to me…

My other paintings of Marge are below.

Pastel portrait painting of a bearded man

Pastel painting 11 inches x 17 inches

Another pastel portrait of Tom! By now, some of you must feel that you know our models intimately. Its nice to be able to paint people a couple of times. You always learn something new with each attempt. One of our artists is setting up a 9-hour figure drawing session, divided into 3 days. I soooo wanted to be a part of it, but my Montana trip will interfere. I have never participated in a session that lasted more than a couple of hours and its been on my artist “bucket list” for a while now. Maybe I can make the next one…