It’s been a while since I worked on a portrait this large, especially with pastels. I really really love the outcome though I had some anxiety in the beginning. This usually happens when I’ve not worked with a particular medium for a while.

A bank manager was to celebrate her birthday and some of the staff members though it fit to present a befitting portrait to her. I got contracted for this and it’s my biggest job so far this year!

I’m the process of making this large portrait I learnt to use a new technique. I had thought of it a few times before but never tried. The thing is, I used to just apply pastels directly on the paper straight off. This is not bad at all but sometimes they leave scratches that are difficult to remove and you may sometimes apply too much.

This new technique is very similar to one commonly used when working with graphite and charcoal, powder! Charcoal/graphite powder helps you cover large areas with value and very smoothly. This layer of value is much easier to maneuver with pencils and graphite/charcoal sticks compared to just shading directly on paper.

Pastel powder works almost the same! So I took a sandpaper stick and started rubbing the chalks against it to make powder. I did this for all the colors I needed on the face and the mixed them up to create even more tones.

With pastels, get ready to get your hands dirty! I’ve tried a lot of things and there’s nothing I’d rather blend pastels with than my fingers, it just works so well!

After creating a nice base layer with the pastel powder, it was easier to apply the pastels to create more thicker tones and gradually make the image pop.

For the dress, I did some base layer with the powder before bringing out the patterns with some soft charcoal, General’s and Conte à Paris.

I took this shot at the framing shop just before sending it out for delivery.

The best part of this is that I heard she almost cried when she saw the portrait, tears of joy of course. I love how my craft brings happiness to people, it keeps me going strong!

Thanks for taking the time to view my post, hope to see you around some other time.

✌🏾