Pastel portrait

[Kathryn Day]

I am fairly new to portraits, have been trying different subjects as I learn the pastel medium. soft pastels. This is on lacarte paper, approx 11x14 using assorted soft pastels. I will post the photo that I painted from, the midway wip, and the finished portrait. I can make small changes to this one still, but any thoughts will also help me greatly with the next one.





Thank you for looking.

[Mandy Valin]

This looks good Kathy, all I would suggest is to just keep pushing those values, lighter lights on his nose and cheeks and forehead, you got your darks pretty good though! But putting more highlight on his face will bring more dimension and much more interest to his face.

[Anda G]

This is looking great! Great Job!

It's hard to get the values, but you are getting there.

Andagail

[weera]

It's looks pretty .

[claydesigner2156]

To all the pastel portrait artists...wonderful! I do portraits in water color but am thinking of giving pastels a whirl. Now I'm not sure. Looks much harder to blend the colors...and the eyes...whew! Anyway great work.
Yvonne

[Wrichards]

looks very good, if you bring the corners of the mouth a bit more out it will lessen the distortion a bit. over all good job

[CRYork]

This is really nice. Great job on the hair! I'm no expert, but might want to put more shading on the right side of his face by his ear, so the front of the face will be more separated from the side and his face won't look warped on that side. Does this make sense? Nice-looking kid...and nice portrait!

Char

[Jo Castillo]

Kathy, this is very nice. Brave soul to tackle portraits. I don't do portraits so can't critique. He is a cutie and looks young and a little mischievous.
Jo

[NickyW]

Hi Kathy youve done excellent..portraits are very hard, i am on my first self portrait. So its good to watch someone do one from the start. He looks just lovely to me..well done.

[mauricar]

Really nice job on this. You have captured him. My only nitpic would be to lighten some areas, but that has already been mentioned. Pastels are not an easy medium to learn, but once you have it, you really can do great things with them. I would say that you are well on your way. You are doing very well with portraits. Keep up the good work.
Midge

[imaginationcounts]

he is really cute pastels im also doing a self portrait with my great neice
in oil pastels it hard to work with for me . i so used to oils paints. ill post my beginning works in this form . theresa

[daleo]

Just starting with pastels found this very interesting daleo

[Fjuffynator]

The cheeks seem a bit wrong.. dont know why though=/

[Dana Design]

Generally speaking, the catchlights in his eyes would be on the same side of the eyes. Not on opposite sides. And his mouth isn't wide enough. Measure down from the portion of the eyes as to where the mouth would end.

I also believe that his ear needs some adjustment as in the photo, it's lying alongside the head whereas in the painting, it's sticking straight out. Trim the side of the ear and add some darker values. They're quite noticeable in the photo.

And as others have said, I think you could go a bit darker with values in the creases of his eyes and nose (and give a bit more definition to his shirt).

It's nicely done but with a few tweaks.....could be terrific! Cute little boy!

[Kathryn Day]

Thank you for the feedback. This was posted in 2006, so it has been with the owner for a while. lol I do however love to have critique so that I can see where I can improve on the next ones. The few portraits I have done have been for family and when I see them, I can now see "what I should have done differently", now that I know a little more.

Thanks