Camilla

[Allan Rahbek]

Hi,

This is a 17 years old pastel of my daughter,that I have reworked.

Inspired by the words of Sharon Knettel I found that it would not pass any test, so I did a total repaint of most of it.

12" x 15,5" on Canson paper with Lefranc and Rembrandt soft pastels.

Allan

[Sharon Knettell]

Allan,

I hope you don't mean that my words inspired discouragement. This picture would pass a lot of tests. It is charming, lively and fresh.

I don't think anyone realizes how difficult skintones are to do in pastel. You either have mud or it is too pasty. You have successfully avoided each.

One suggestion I would make, is to strenghthen your picture plane. You have to decide before you start a picture where the light is coming from. This face is lit totally from the front which has a tendency to somewhat flatten the form, making it more diffcult to define form. The picture plane I referred to is the overall light and dark of the total picture. There should be one side, top or bottom that would be darker, instead of the overall flatness of your background.

In other words, I would have lit her slighly to the left, resulting in the background being darker on the left and lighter on the right. This would give more depth to the painting and heighten the light areas of the face making them more luminous.

I hope this explanation makes sense.

[Allan Rahbek]

Hi Sharon

Thank you for your kind constructive critic. The picture was exactly like you described in the other post, a colored drawing, with to much color and too little light.

The reference was a B/W Pro-photo from the kindergarden so I think that I will leave it as is, and better see if I can buy the digital camera that I need so much to get some decent reference photos.

I found that my pastels was placed in boxes without any palette system. So I made groups of the different colors - Raw Sienna, Vermilion and Light Red and so on. This made it much easier to pick up the the right stick.

Perhaps it will be an idea to limit the number of colors. E.g. Light Red is very useful so I should buy all 10 tones. Other colors maybe 4-6 tones. Few colors but in many tones due to fact that they can not be mixed.

Allan

[SB Wang]

Allan:
Nice work and a pretty Danish girl!

[Allan Rahbek]

SB

I do not have the Photoshop, but I will post the reference.

I is black and white as you see, but the lighting is very flat coming directly from the front.

Allan