Well, I am no expert. And it depends on what you are looking to achieve. But, I am learning not to blend so much or to blend using the pastel stick. Also, blending to get a new color doesn’t work very well with pastels. I am not familiar with the papers you are using, but I use many, many layers. Layering color on top of color until I get what I want. Also, after all that anyone can tell you, practice is the best way to learn. You will learn from practice how your pastels work with your paper. You will learn your own way of doing things that will work for you. I know how you may be banging your head on the wall, but the best thing you can do is just keep going.

It looks pretty good, right now. It looks like you have a fair selection of colors. Don’t try to stick exactly to what you see. Branch out and use what colors you have. Purples in the shadows, light greens on the highlights, etc. Play and learn.

I need to stop typing. I could go on forever… LOL!

I think your portrait is really coming along! I would put more of a shadow on the forehead and eyes but of course remember that photos often render shadows too dark and lights too light. As for blending, I wouldn’t–as you say, it deadens the pastel. I agree with Moises that you might try sharpening some nupastels or any hard ones and use strokes and layers of color. I find that using the softies last on top of the hard pastels works best for me. My long time instructor, Carol Peebles (google her portraits) always advises to leave the breath of the paper between strokes and I have found that if you step back from the piece you might like that look. Even if you want a more painterly approach with soft pastels, I find it best to lay down the stroke and leave it alone, optically blending over time. One trick with hard pastels that works for blending is to lightly go over whole sections lightly with a sharp pastel pencil, it tends to unify the piece. For example, go over the face with a green pencil if it is looking to warm or a sanguine if you need more warmth. Last thought is to watch Ellen Eagle’s videos by New Masters Academy. You can watch her lay down every stroke and many many layers. Very helpful to watch. Hope some of this helps.

This is really great! Don’t give up or get too discouraged. To my eye it looks like you have a great solid foundation here, and you are on the way to a nice finished painting. You took on a big challenge here for a beginner too, a portrait of someone you know and love. Take other’s advice, relax and enjoy it, take plenty of breaks and it will be fine! I’m anxious to see the finished piece!

Look, that happens to me all the time! When I start a work at the beginning it looks bad and I get disappointed and I need to take a break. When I get back I notice the problem and fix it. Then it happens again, and again, and finally I put all the puzzles together and I finish with a decent work.
What I have learned about pastel is that you need pastel pencils, hard pastels Prismacolor at least a box containing 48 sticks. Mungyo is a good brand and it could be used as a soft pastel at times. I use my Nu-pastel (Prismacolor) at the beginning of my work, and also pastel pencils for the drawings and very slowly build up the values. A good video is presented by Daniel Greene where he explains very well the process of portraiture using pastels.

You have got a great start and good advise, one thing to remember is your colours don’t have to be exactly the same as in the photo so don’t stress if you don’t have the right coloured pastels as long as you get the values right you can fudge on the colour.
As Karen says pastel pencils do come in handy for the small details.
Deanna