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Back to: Demonstrations | Home Pastel Painting
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I chose a warm ochre paper for
this painting to reflect the golden glow of a sleeping baby. The outlines are drawn in white conté pencil, checking proportions particularly carefully. It can be very hard to see if a face is 'right' when it is at an unusual angle like this; we are not very good at recognising faces other than in their usual upright position. Simply turning the drawing on its side, however, so that the face is vertical, immediately shows up any distortions and mistakes. The horizontal and vertical guidelines are not marking centre points but are ensuring that marker points line up correctly: the top of the ear with the eyelids, the top of the fingers with the side of the nose and the inner end of the eyebrow. |
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| I begin to block in broad areas of warm and cool. Warm reds and oranges on the cheeks and forehead and cool tones on the backs of the arms and shoulders and on the jaw line where the light catches. |
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I continue to build up smaller areas of different hues, picking out the lemons, blues and lavenders as well as the more obvious pinks and oranges. Babies' skin is often almost translucent so that it can look quite blue in places, but great care must be taken not to overplay this as the effect, especially in a portrait of a sleeping child, can be quite morbid. Similarly, yellow tones which might add zing and life to a portrait of an older person can look sickly and jaundiced on a baby. | |
| The use of a wide range of colours serves many uses. The interplay of warm and cool tones gives an impression both of temperature and of depth, simultaneously making the flesh seem real and alive and also modelling its shape. The general form of the baby and the shape of the features are now defined. |
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In the final stages care is taken to pick out and accentuate the highlights and the shadows, giving sharper definition to the features and giving the painting body and depth. The final addition of the blanket on which the baby's head rests makes the painting real and grounded rather than an ethereal floating image. | |
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copyright © Jane Duke 2004-2008 |