Pastels and Watercolors (and a few other art media)

[limr]

Mouse by Wade, on Flickr

Myshka!!

 

[terri]

Terrific little guy!!

 

[SquarePeg]

Mouse by Wade, on Flickr

Amazing level of detail. You have a lot of talent! And patience.

 

[SquarePeg]

I was challenged by Princess to draw a face after I complimented her latest project which is a portrait of some YouTube or Tiktok star. Faces are hard! While this drawing is not terrible, it looks nothing like the face in the tutorial that I tried to follow and it isn’t very realistic looking which is what my goal was. She’s too pretty. She looks like she’s been to a spa for eyelashes and lip injections lol.

 

[waday]

Myshka!!

Terrific little guy!!

Amazing level of detail. You have a lot of talent! And patience.

Thank you!

 

[waday]

I was challenged by Princess to draw a face after I complimented her latest project which is a portrait of some YouTube or Tiktok star. Faces are hard! While this drawing is not terrible, it looks nothing like the face in the tutorial that I tried to follow and it isn’t very realistic looking which is what my goal was. She’s too pretty. She looks like she’s been to a spa for eyelashes and lip injections lol.

View attachment 192240

Love it! Faces a freaking hard! I want to find a few tutorials, as well

 

[terri]

I was challenged by Princess to draw a face after I complimented her latest project which is a portrait of some YouTube or Tiktok star. Faces are hard! While this drawing is not terrible, it looks nothing like the face in the tutorial that I tried to follow and it isn’t very realistic looking which is what my goal was. She’s too pretty. She looks like she’s been to a spa for eyelashes and lip injections lol.

View attachment 192240

Lol, you get kudos for trying! It's ok if it doesn't replicate the tutorial. The exercise is just getting the oval face, going for that symmetry, etc.

Good job!

 

[terri]

Okay, here is a face I worked on. Not going for realism at all; they're hard enough. But, I am finding that I sketch/paint with the same head space as I have with photography. Virtually all my photography is utilizing alternative processes to get things to look surreal. I'd have never been allowed in Group f/64 - pictorialism all the way.

From the sketchbook:

Then I decided to sketch it again and use the oil pastels. I came across a couple of 19th century portraits where there were these deep red backgrounds, and really wanted to try one. Then all I could think of to do is give this girl a green hat for contrast. Not a lot of imagination there since they're complementary colors, but whatever.

I didn't have a plan to finish her out from the sketch, so just did the ruffle thing and stuck with green. I'm sitting here thinking what a dainty little thing she is. Also, like @SquarePeg I sketched this little nose and a full mouth. Sharon, are we unconscious victims of advertising?! I had fun doing the eyes, though - three different colors in there, dark green, pale green, and light brown around the pupils.

 

[SquarePeg]

Tonight’s tutorial. She looks a bit like Elsa and nothing like the photo we were supposed to be copying but... the features are much more symmetrical and I learned a few tricks for better proportion and shading.

Terri I tried to find a less pretty face to draw but the beginner tutorials are all pretty girls!

 

[terri]

Nice work! Yeah, who knows where these tutorials come from. But sketching with pencil is kind of relaxing, isn't it? I enjoyed doing my sketch, it was more difficult when I decided to move ahead and add color.

Your shading looks good, too!

 

[SquarePeg]

Painted this last night. It’s a copy of a painting I found online but I’ve used a different color scheme. I hate that I added the leaves - it looked better with just the stem. Should I make them bigger so they are more proportional or just leave it alone? Should I add a background or leave it blank?

 

[terri]

Those petals look awesome! I think you did well choosing your own palette. Myself, I'd leave those leaves alone for now - just be aware and start planning for the next painting. You could start a little lower, and swoop them out to the sides a bit before going up, to give yourself more room on the paper. That would allow for larger leaves, especially on the left side there. They don't need to be symmetrical.

I have a hard time laying off of backgrounds, but OP's are (I think) easier to handle. (Which is why I use them, no doubt. ) The way I build paintings is to plan in advance on a background and paint it in first, then layer over it. I'm guessing you can do the same with watercolors. Maybe @snowbear could advise? In the meantime, your spatters are very effective.

Nice work!

 

[limr]

New supplies finally!

Started seeing how each color looked in different consistencies. The green and blues are more intense that I expected. I bought new brushes, but the paints also came with a brush that seems really good. Holds a lot of water. It's been a while since I laid out the old paints like this, so I'll probably do that as reference.

 

[terri]

@SquarePeg, there was a painting I did that came to mind when you posted your pretty cherry tree. I forgot to look for it, but was reminded just now. I took several work-in-progress pics, because it was a PITA! You were just asking about backgrounds, and these WIP photos are a fair example of how I build an OP painting.

This was done as a challenge when I was given this literary quote and had to paint from it:

"'The Avenue,' so called by the Newbridge people, was a stretch of road 4-500 yards long, completely arched over with huge, wide-spreading apple trees, planted years ago by an eccentric old farmer. Overhead was one long canopy of snowy fragrant bloom. Below the boughs the air was full of a purple twilight and, far ahead, a glimpse of painted sunset sky shone like a great rose window at the end of a cathedral aisle." - L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables.

So there's my "interpretation" of that literary quote. But the point here is going from back to front on this one, layering all that white over the purple sky:

Changed my mind about that straight road later, but that was an easy fix. Anyway, there's an example of back-to-front painting that works for me with these oil pastels. I sketched the tree placement in advance with pencil up there. They needed to reach each other on top to get that canopy effect.

The trees were fun to do - a closeup:

 

[terri]

New supplies finally!

Started seeing how each color looked in different consistencies. The green and blues are more intense that I expected. I bought new brushes, but the paints also came with a brush that seems really good. Holds a lot of water. It's been a while since I laid out the old paints like this, so I'll probably do that as reference.

View attachment 192333

Congrats on the new toys, er, supplies! Those tubes should get you down the road a ways. Your palette layout looks good, too - you'll refer to that a lot.

Fun times ahead!