Ben

[Leslie Ficcaglia]

That's beautiful, Mary. The flesh tones are especially good and you can see how soft the child's skin is. His expression is wonderfully rendered, too.

Question: How do you achieve the fine lines and details with pastels? Are you using sticks or pencils? I've been playing with plein air recently and wondering how this effect is achieved in portraits. Yours are so well done.

[Mary Sparrow]

Hi Leslie, and thank you.

For the finer lines I use the sharp edges of a nu-pastel, a broken jagged edge of a soft pastel or occasionally a pencil.

[Kimberly Dow]

Mary -

I had to come back and look at this. The first time I looked my eyes saw a wonderfully done portrait. This time I really looked and I am just wondering how you managed to get a photo of my son and paint it? He is now 13, but it is positively spooky how much this looked like him at maybe 3? The same hair and brows, the same tilt upwards of the outside part of the eyes and the same nose. I'm going to have to scan an old photo in - it is really uncanny!