Light & shade

preliminary pen sketch

Often I will see something in the lightening, or a scene, a person or a photo that just portrays things perfectly. often I will have to scratch around, doodle and sketch till I understand what I saw.

Once I can see the inspiration developing on the page, the picture usually comes together quickly.

adding a watercolour wash

adding shadow

beginning in pastel

Finding the Light & Shadow

 

Torso 5 - Bringing it together

“#Drawing is not the form; it is the way of seeing the form." ... Degas http://t.co/th38kumbzS pic.twitter.com/nq45EX4MxT
— norton elissen (@sighclone) February 5, 2015

I'm back sketching each day, a torso each morning, and it great for the soul as well as honing my technique, Seeing the light and translating that into tone in a wash or pen line at an edge is an essential first step but I do like using pastel to be able to add or remove the light and finding lines, perhaps more sculptural than drawing/painting

You can see the individual scans on my tumble log

Torso 2

The Proud Outstretch Torso

Begining a new torso series

Red Stocking Torso

Developing another pastel torso

     

Starting the New Year with a Pastel Torso

  

Another Day Another Selfie to Sketch

marker pen on paper, composition sketch

Keeping it soft, Pastel on coloured paper

The Spring Carvinal is On

Looking for Trouble

Time to have a day at the races and wear a little (but expensive hat)

Pastel on paper

You might also find me on google+

Pastel progress

Pastel Play

Hello ..again

It has been a long long time since I posted it here. Too long! I'd moved to pastels some time ago and loved them as a rapid medium, you sketch and paint at the same time but... I could never get the detail I wanted and I always seemed to struggle trying to finish them, and instead I would ruin them with overworking. So my pastels where put aside for a while. Recently I have been inspired to return to the 2 minute torso idea, ok this is more of a gesture sketch (taking a fair bit longer than 2 minutes) and figured if I started smaller and didin't get fixated with the gradient of skin tone and detail, and more importantly stopped before it was to late I might have a chance of doing better and I must admit I am charmed by my fist attempt at a 10 minute toso pose and a shy first time model.

mood in pastel

I had my rant about strong colour in pastels in the last blog post ...so now I'm using them in a more muted colour schemes ...not to disprove my own rules, just to show that pastel is a lovely way to capture mood and feeling

hand .vs. computer

I'm still playing around with computer generated painting via Corel Painter Essentials. I do really like the programs BUT I don't really like the tracing paper it kind of stiffles my action ...maybe I need a bigger tablet? I don't really want to draw lines anyway ...they become so restrictive. SO what about the eye dropper and "taking" my colours from the photo (under the tracing paper) ..its also a very nice feature BUT I tend to get very bland washed-out colours ...not the colours I would choose by eye ...maybe I am being a little harsh. Here are two portraits of the same saintly friend from flickr. I trust you can recognize my hand drawn effort.

two minute torsos ...some more

Whilst pastel doesn't lend itself to ultra fast sketches (the tones need to be worked and blending reworked before the pastel looks rich!) I still like the two minute torso exercises as a way to lead into a fuller exploration of gesture & posture & composition & ... the list goes on and on ....what is working well for me at the moment is to do this quick torso sketch in watercolour ...then begining of the pastel ...I have even rubbed pastel over a watercolour ...life is to short not to exploit and enjoy it ...even when painting

chalk on my fingers ...again

kool portrait,
originally uploaded by sigh clone.

I haven't used my pastels anywehere near enough for a while ...I like being able to apply the rich pigments directly mixing the colours on the surface ...but i think i need to have a watercolour wash of use coloured paper to really see that richness ...which doesn't scan well by the way

...Vive le pastel

That is some cyber woman

You would have to admit that the cyberwoman on tonight's re-run of Torchwood, puts those cyber nasties on Dr Who to shame.

The yellow bra in pastel

Pastel on Paper

mucking around with tone

pastel on paper. with watercolour wash under the dark tones

buxom dreams

pastel on paper