2 New Pan Pastel Portraits from Life — Elisa and Emily

[Donna A]

Hi, Everyone! I finished the backgrounds on my two grand nieces' portraits. First is Elisa'a portrait. It's all Pan Pastel, as her sister's portrait--both of them painted from life when home from college over the holidays. This one is on Storm Blue Colourfix 20"x28" and I didn't need to use any fixative at all with either portrait, even though there are areas where I laid the pigment on pretty richly.



Here is a detail of the left side of her face to get a bit of an idea of the delicacy, the detail, the blending, and still some loose painterliness plus the lovely flesh tones that are possible with Pan Pastels. And this is only the fourth portrait I've done with these. I LOVE painting portraits with the PanP's!!! Just wonderful! Almost easier than in oil or with stick pastels, I think. But then it depends on what kind of portrait we are doing. They are all glorious! :-)



Notice the jaw line above. I really worked that a bit to get that very soft, cool edge that was clean but gently drifting around the curve of her jaw as moved back toward her throat---and the color changed from the generally cooler pale flesh under her cheekbone to a warmish rich color up across her pink cheeks and then softly transformed to a paler, warmer, less pink, slightly more orangy tint on up toward her eye. There are subtle planes that go a bit cooler or a bit lower in intensity or on in some other way(s) change ever so slightly---and which can make some nearly magical visual effects as we learn to see and use color ever better. I learned a LOT about managing very delicate shifts in color here, manipulating both the Pan colors and the sponges to achieve just the right edges and color qualities in this entire area.

And here is a detail of the right side of Elisa's face. I was so glad to be able to get some of the subtle colors that can make such a difference in more 'realistic' portraits. The shadow colors can often be the more challenging. This is where, often times, the paper towel color-build-up touches to moderate the color on my sponge tools had come in so handy, as I was mentioning in a post a day or two ago. The blending ability is just luxurious! It can be as utterly 'baby-bottom smooth' or created with a bit of 'personality' while still easing across a lovely series of mellow gradations.



And here is a detail of some of the woodwork from the antique confessional which served as the background for Elisa. I worked very carefully to make the edges of the wood workings soft and subtle so that they would not upstage her. The original color of paint that is in the little carved-out area in the piece that angles out on the corner happens to be about the same color---a teal blue---as Elisa's shirt. That was too fun to resist! With her cool blue-blond hair, I liked the rich orangy color of the wood playing off in contrast---some of which shows even more in the full painting. And above Elisa to her right is a large north skylight, so very lovely blue light was softly pouring in on the planes facing toward the skylight, while I used a 200W (orangy-colored light) incandescent bulb to her left, giving wonderfully warm lights in contrast. I get so much richer color with that lighting set up!



Here is the portrait of Emily. This was done on Leaf Green Colourfix 20"x28". I painted this one a bit looser than Elisa's and it actually came together faster. Except for part of the background, the finish of her pearls and her sleeves (which originally were short) I painted her in about two hours once we got started.



This is a detail of the left side of Emily's face---and you can see some of the Storm Green showing through the lines of vine charcoal from my drawing.



Here is a detail of the pearls. I went into details about how I approached painting these in a post a couple of days ago on Pastel Talk in the "Having a BALL..." thread if you are interested. Other details about some of the techniques I used here and in other pieces.



I just never expected that these Pan Pastels would possibly do anywhere near as much as I'm finding they will do. I just keep being amazed by them! Very exciting to use! Take good care! Donna ;-}

[AtlantaRed]

Elisa is being quite the quiet dominance-rix.

Emily has an annoyed hotness to her.

I like them. The looseness on what you've done with Emily is very good (to me).

The lighting effects/shading with Elisa is great!

[Tracy Lewis]

absolutly beautiful!

[pastellar]

Wow, Donna! You have created two wonderful portraits here. I'm amazed that this can be done with pans (sadly not available here in the UK - yet!). These are truly beautiful!

[Andi Rebirth]

Donna,
You know I am one of your fans, so I love your work. Yhese are just wonderful. I love the lights and darks in your portraits of such beautiful girls.
I really love these, I have never tried pan pastels, my husband would have a fit if I order one more set of pastels! Lovely work. Andi

[bchlvr]

Fabulous portraits. You do beautiful work.

[DAK723]

Great work. Thanks for the close-ups - they really reveal the amount of subtle color and detail that you have achieved with the Pans. I have experimented just a little bit with the Pans and find them good for large general areas of color and almost impossible for this sort of detail. You seem to make it sound like the Pans are responsible for the success of these - I think not. You deserve the credit for two remarkable portraits.

Don

[Donna T]

Donna, these are beautiful portraits of two very beautiful young women. I agree with Don, the pan pastels helped but the talent is all yours. It makes sense that these pastels work so well for portraits. You don't have to fight the pastels to keep lines from being too pronounced and the background elements can be kept soft-edged. Thanks so much for all the close-ups. I may just get inspired to try a portrait one of these days.

Donna T

[Paula Ford]

WOW! These are so beautiful!!!

Paula

[David Patterson]

What wonderful portraits Donna! You've really mastered those Pan Pastels!

David

[DAK723]

Donna,

Would you mind sharing the specific pans that you used for the flesh tones in Elisa's portrait? These colors are so lifelike. This is my third time looking at these and I am just incredibly impressed.

Don

[Alison2]

What beautiful portraits! I love the green tones in the top on the second portrait too.

Gorgeous!

Alison

[Donna A]

Originally Posted by AtlantaRed

Elisa is being quite the quiet dominance-rix.

Emily has an annoyed hotness to her.

I like them. The looseness on what you've done with Emily is very good (to me).

The lighting effects/shading with Elisa is great!

LOL, AtlantaRed! Both girls have always been soooo quiet---well around the family at any rate, but now and then when they were sitting---hee hee hee---I got to see some extra fun sparks of their personality glow. They would no doubt get a kick out of your comments! :-) I do know they both have great senses of humor. And they are both just gorgeous, each in their own way!

Emily sat for me first---and I really seemed to 'get her' pretty fast. And I do enjoy painting 'fast and loose!' Elisa was much more elusive. I could see her mom, my niece Catherine, in her portrait's face and my sister Margaret (Elisa's aunt,) too---along WITH Elisa's likeness, so---I knew I was in the 'ball park' but I did have to ask Elisa if she would come back the next afternoon. It was fun since her mom and a good friend of hers, who is also an art major as is Elisa---and FINALLY I 'found' Elisa in the painting! And since I've been experimenting with these Pan Pastels, I wanted to see what very fine, nuanced, delicate qualities I could achieve---with some pretty gentle blends and such (even though blending is not something I tend to do when I paint.)

I really love both portraits, but in part for different reasons. And both girls! They are very lovely young ladies! And will give the portraits to them.

By the way, I set up a mirror so that they could both watch the progress of the portrait as I painted. Most people have never seen a painting happen, so even for Emily, who is not an art major, but has always enjoyed creating art, it was interesting.

And love your comments, AtlantaRed! :-) Thank you! Donna ;-}

[Donna A]

Hi, Tracy, pastellar, andi, Linn, Don, Donna T, Paula, Alison and David! Thank you so much for your very lovely comments and feedback! I really appreciate it.

I've always loved doing portraits and figure paintings, though most of the work I've done in the last many years has been landscapes and still lifes. I just love painting shapes of colors! and the feel of lights and shadows and the dymanic energies of a composition, whatever the subject! But---I do have to admit---this return to portraits has been soooo delish!

As 'at home' as I am painting from life with oil and pastel sticks, there was something sooooo delicious about the feel of putting on the PanP's in these two portraits---and two others I did earlier of friends, one on stretched canvas primed with Coloufix SuperTooth Primer, the other also on Cfix, and posted on the "Having a BALL.... thread along with a lot of landscapes and a still life or two, plus some works by artists who study with me.

The hair strokes were so easy. The skin tones were so easy, even getting the subtle shadow tones. The bits and pieces were so easy---eyes, etc! EASE---but then we've talked about EASE in using these in the "Having a BALL..." thread and someone in one of my painting classes (they've been using my PanP's but many ordering their own, now)---and several saying how wonderfully 'addicting' it was is to use these. LOL! Yep! But then we all find things that feel best to us to use and work best for us. And different things work for different artists!

One thing to remember about any new material is that when we first begin to use something we are not familiar with, it takes a while to 'get the hang of it.' To find the little tips and tricks and techniques of using them. It's been a fascinating journey for me and, what I supposed at first sight would be a 'nice little pastel underpainting material,' has become a magnificent major asset in pastel painting---as well as mixed-media work with watercolor and some other mediums! Pretty amazing. I was sooo surprised. Did not expect to make these discoveries! And as intently as I've been working with these now since end of October, for the most part, I am still finding more and more and more!

There are ways of loading and then of laying down the sponge tool against the painting surface, and how to use edges for very fine lines and how to pull one color into another and which sponge tool to pick for which type of stroke in which situation and how to do complex mixes of colors and such that make wonderful differences in how our paintings turn out. And soooo many of these things (not all) are things that, in their own way, are also related to similar techniques in pastel stick, oil and acrylic painting and even in watercolor, etc! As utterly unique these are, they are still from Planet Earth!

Was great to see how folks in class picked up these great techniques when shown a particular way of selecting and handing a tool or mixing a color from 2 or 3 Pans or way of laying down a color---pressure, direction, etc. There are just sooo many wonderful possibilities! And the blending is exquisite!!! Wow! I've gone in to so many of the techniques and other discoveries and observations I've made on the "Having a BALL..." thread on Pastel Talk, so if you want to learn even more about using them---there is a ton of info there to check out all the way through. Some report that they've already been through the info 2 or 3 times!

You can learn to do amazing things with the Pan Pastels! I have probably just experimented a lot more, so if you are using them---all this is in the Pan Pastels. Keep working with them. They will serve you!!! I just love them! And---'they play so well with others!' :-)

They will be in Australia end of February or early March and surely the UK will have them before too much longer. You could contact the company and ask. Enjoy! And thank you all so much for your very lovely comments! I really appreciate! Donna ;-}

[Goewyn]

These are beautiful! How many pan-pastels did you have available to work from/did you use?

-- Linda