Dear Linda, Thanks!

That place does seem a nice place to visit and be! ;)

Garth

Garth,
you seem to have fun with colors!
In comparison with your other pastel we could admire at the PSA conference which had some very nice color qualities, this one looks more vibrant ( colors, strokes ) and it support the subject ( less quiet than your last one).

I really have no experience with pastels, but here is the pastel demo of Gwenneth Barth at the PSC conference:
I remember that she was beginning with a pastel pencil, and was building layers after layers using hard pastels at the beginning and then softer and softer. When she had to stop, she was a bit frustrated because she thought that the interresting part was just coming...
I hope this can help...

.

Dear Marina,

Cool! That is a helpful demo. It does appear Gwenneth Barth was just getting into the "interesting part"! What a great and free beginning.

I like the distinction of personalities you are discerning between the two pastels.

Well for you to be someone who professes to have no experience with pastels, what are you waiting for?! Your chalk, sanguine, and charcoal drawings are atounding, to say the least!

Garth

Well, it's pretty hard to resist to the temptation, I could spent my whole life experimenting new techniques! But for the moment I try to be reasonable, and to be able to control few ones...

I'm becoming more interested in pastels by the second! The range of approaches seems infinite. Garth, you were working only in soft pastels, then we have the Gwynneth Barth demo, hard to soft, and I'm thinking of Judy Carducci's wonderful demos, too.

Thank you for sharing the reference photos, Garth. Maybe the likeness wasn't the most important thing, but you've definitely caught it. I didn't realize he was the same boy that was in that other painting. (It's obvious now that I know.)

Oooooooh, lucky you, Garth. You got the BIG box of crayons! Your new pastels sound like great fun.

(By the way, I also love the composition with the viewpoint from above showing the boy peeking out from behind the wall. It has a very contemporary feel.)

The oil painting is marvelous too, and thanks for showing the reference photos, I think there is nothing to say about the likeness !
It has been a while since you posted this, do you have new pastels to show here ? What has become of this one, you mentioned you were pausing to show it here, have you left it untouched ? I think it is fine as it is, except maybe for the white area to the left.
Also I wonder about letting the surface of the paper show so much : the pastel pigment itself should not be altered in time, but usually coloured papers fade in time which would change the whole balance of your original work.

Gwenneth Barth has a DVD "Creating A Portrait In Pastel"

I know what they say about working with hard pastels and moving on to softer and softer ones.... But I tend to work the other way around : it is interesting to learn how other people work to give you new insights, but it is so much fun working your way around difficulties all by yourself at first.

Sound advice on paper fading!
 

Jean-Fran