Devotee Revisited

                                                                 Pastels on Pastelmat
                                                                          16"x20"
This is hermit from India was my first subject in my pastel portrait journey.Though the first one was appreciated, but as it was on a lower quality paper I was not very happy with the outcome.I have tried to do it differently again,this time I used pastelmat to get as much detail as I want.
Perhaps I went too ambitious with the size -50x70 cm( what you see here is the cropped version) .. in the end it looked unnecessary- I cropped it to publish.
What I am trying to achieve with my pastel work is the happy combination of realism and impressionism.I want my portraits to look as real as possible but not like a photograph.They must have a character of their own.I would leave it to you to decide if I have succeeded...
Have a great weekend, all of you.

Devotee

Charcoal and pastel on toned paper

12"x16"

Glad to share another drawing with charcoal and pastel pencils.Intended to be monochromatic but I could not resist some color and ended up doing a colored drawing instead of a tonal sketch.I must say I am getting the hang of my pastel pencils after all.I am loving building up the color stroke by stroke..just like oil paints.One more thing I like about this medium- I can use white for highlights!So much fun after watercolors' worry about leaving the paper white for highlights.

Please do let me know what do you think of this effort.