I was commissioned to paint this beautiful girl as a surprise present. The photo reference showed what a beauty she is and I loved her sidewards glance. Hope you enjoy her progress and a little of my Spanish travels after the New Year when I was working on her. This was my first painting of 2017, and it’s always good to start the year with a pretty dog!
Ailsa’s finished portrait, soft pastel 14″ x 12″
The photo reference I worked from. I loved the dramatic sky behind her but had a little adjustment to do to her eyes to take away the lens flare.
After the New Year I get Ailsa up on my board ready to start. I had a tight deadline on this one so I managed to get it done in three days, leaving enough time for it to be posted to my framer in Northern Ireland and gifted near the end of January.
I use lovely warm purple greys for the clouds. It takes a lot of blending of many layers to create skies.
While I work on Ailsa, we have arrived at a nice free spot to park up on the edge of a little town called Simat de Valldigna. We park with other motorhomes beside the orange groves and with a nice view of the surrounding mountains. It’s always a bonus when your have a view from the motorhome.
We go for a walk into town and get barked at from balconies. I couldn’t resist snapping this face!
Making a start on the top of Ailsa using the black harder Faber Castell stick and some pastel pencil to drag the very finest hairs out around the edges.
Blocking in the main areas of colour and using marks in the direction of the hair to build up that texture.
It’s always good to get some eyes looking back at you. I still have some work to do here, but happy with the overall shape and colours.
In the same town there is a beautiful monastry with ancient ruins. Oranges really seem to grow everywhere around this area.
Some of the beautiful hills surrounding us. We’re not far from the sea but it’s nice to explore inland a little too.
A lot more work done on Ailsa’s face. I think because I was on a tight deadline I forgot to take as many progress pictures as normal. You can see the small shards of pastel I use to get the very smallest details.
Working on down her body there is a lot of darkness, so I get this blocked in first. I also loved the splash of colour on her collar and tag. These added a zing of colour to the portrait.
Here you can see me build up that ruffled area around her neck. I use many colours and layers to build up the effect of the fur. After this it’s just a few whiskers and tweaks and that’s me!
On my last evening working on this, Brocci and I take a welcome sunset on the beach. It feels good to speed through a piece that just goes to plan. A good start to 2017!
Lovely piece of art.like all the Colours .posted my first attempt on Pastels on FB of my Chihauhau Kim
Thanks for visiting Trevor! I love pastel for animal portraits. Yes you can mix pastel pencil and soft pastels. I do in all my work. I use the pencils for the smallest detail like around eyes etc. But it’s also useful for neatening up the soft pastel marks you’ve applied by not leaning but using the pencil to push the pigment around a little. It depends how detailed you want to go but the real strength of colour comes from the softer sticks.
Check out my Youtube channel where I’m making tutorials to show this sort of thing. Here is one video on fur which shows how I use both of them together https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dbzj6ZP9y5c
Can you mix soft Pastels with pastel pencils?
i love the way your art is fitted into your way of life and it seems to be a comfortable fit .
i hope it will always be thus as i know commercial pressures tend to add stress.
please keep doing your lovely work and showing it to us lesser mortals .you are an inspiration.
mal collins
Hi Malcolm, thanks so much for visiting the blog and leaving such a lovely comment. I too hope I can continue to travel and produce my paintings. The two do fit really well together and it’s the commercial aspect of my art that makes it possible to do this. I’ve spent about 8 years building it up to the point where it earns me enough to live quite a simple life but a fulfilled one. And I don’t mind deadlines too much, they focus me a lot!
Best wishes,
Emma
Do you use suede paper frequently for animal portraits? I like the look of it when doing fur, put can’t get the pastels to adhere properly, Too much pastel falls off as dust. Do you have advice for me?
Hi Janice, yes that is a common enough problem with this paper. My work however is very stable on it, although if it were handled roughly or dropped some dropoff would occur like most pastels. I do many things to the paper to make it more stable and it’s also partly how I work on it. I have a post with velour tips at https://www.emmacolbertart.com/2016/04/15/pastel-tips-using-velour/ which you may find helpful.