Pastel portrait painting of a man with a white beard.

Pastel painting 12 inches x 18 inches

Tom was our subject again a few weeks ago at our figure drawing session. I’ve painted him 3 times in the last year, and I thought I’d show you all 3 pastel portraits in one post. I chose to work in black and white this time, for a change. Its kind of interesting to compare them. I think his beard is growing a bit longer…

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

Pastel portrait painting of a young woman reading.

Pastel painting   9 inches x 12 inches

Loosen up! I wanted to do a quick figure painting, a sketch really, playing around with color and expressive strokes. Every once in a while it helps to play with your medium, in this case pastel, and get away from your usual approach. I liked the diagonal composition and using complimentary colors, red and green, which make the piece really zing! I’m not sure that my daughter Manda would recognize herself, but I wasn’t really looking to create and exact pastel portrait. Just having fun!

I’m currently working on a pastel portrait of mother and child for one of my art clients. This one will be a much tighter rendition. I’ll post it soon…

This artwork was created with:
Paper: Leaf Green Dark Art Spectrum Pastel Paper
Medium: Rembrandt Pastels and Sennelier Pastels

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 painting 16 inches x 11 inches     SOLD

I just gave this pastel commission to my client and he loved it. His father was 47 when he was born and he’d never had a photo of the two of them together. When he was a boy in the 1940s, his dad, a train engineer, often took him to the rail yards to look at the mamouth machines. He provided me with 5 photos of himself when he was young, his only photo of his father (lounging on a sofa), a huge book of train photos and 2 railroad engineer caps. It was a daunting task to take all of that information and try to make it into a cohesive composition.

I felt like I was really creating an historical illustration, as opposed to a fine art pastel portrait. But I enjoyed the challenge and am looking forward to creating another commissioned painting of his wife and her father!

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.