Oil pastel painting || art process video + chat

Hi everyone. I thought I would put together this video to walk you through the whole process of this painting, and what I wanted to achieve with it. I thought that, and here we are. I started sketching to create colors and just very rough shapes, and then I put it into paper and sketchbook. I didn't have a clear reference, which is what I normally try to have, because it is a lot easier to work on it than if you don't have any. I struggle with perfectionism, and I always think it's something that I'm constantly working on, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But I hate that it stops me from doing things that I want to do, just because of the fear of failure. So, with this painting, I decided that it's just a way to have fun, to try, that the end result didn't really matter. So I tried to give myself permission to play around. I know that I rarely do, not even in my sketchbook, I still have this mindset that even my sketchbook has to look pretty, and it's not even useful. So I started on my sketchbook, I started on Procreate, and then quickly moved on to my sketchbook. There's something really nice about traditional media, and just putting things into paper and then erasing and putting them again, which is basically what I'm doing here. I looked at some photos and something, but nothing was close to what I wanted. So, you will see me here, fixing the face multiple times and everything else, erasing, putting back, and back and forth, until I was sort of happy with it. The main goal of this was to keep going, despite it not being 100% perfect, or accurate, or anatomically correct, the grid lighting, or anything. I just wanted to paint. After I was okay with the sketch, kinda, I moved it back to Procreate, and then I worked on it a little bit more, and refined it, until I could run back to my paper. So, I printed it to scale, and traced it. I know some of you have asked me how I transfer my drawings, so this is how I do it. I print them on size, or I draw them on size that I want to have the final printing in, and then I cover the back with graphite. With quite a bit of it. If the transferings are not working for you, use a softer gel, maybe a B or 2B, and then when you are tracing it, put a little pressure. You need to apply a little bit of pressure for it to transfer well. I'm using a regular pen, and that way I see clearly the marks that I already made, so I don't go over the same spot twice. And that's basically it. You could use card and paper, that is made for this, but I don't try that stuff. And this is just, it barely takes me any time, so I don't know. Once it was ready on the board, I started working on it. Most of my oil pastels are from Sumeria, but I, it's been getting older, and they are much more battery, so I wanted to work more with new pastels. So when I was thinking about the colors that I wanted to use to paint for the skin, I kept in mind the sticks, the specific colors that I had from new pastels. Because I only have like 10 of them, I had to use also from Sumeria, especially for the background, or the heads that don't have dark colors. And I only own one green. But I would say the skin is like 90% new pastel. And that was also part of the fun, but why I wanted to paint this, it was to work a bit more with new pastels, and just feel the differences, and all of that. I wanted to play with the oil pastels, so that was fun. I really try this time not to worry about the outcome. To begin with, it was much larger than what I normally paint. Most of the paintings that you see are like 25 by 32 or so, or 24 by 30 centimeters. And this one was, I don't know, I thought it was not twice as large as normal, I think. So yeah. The other thing I usually have before I start painting, I have a very clear image of what I want. And because I use reference that I found, or filled, or created myself, I already paint my painting before I put it, and then I use it as a reference for my traditional media painting. So, first digital, and then traditional. I did that a lot of times. But this time, I did not want. But I wanted to experiment with textures, and maybe incorporating a bit more semi-abstract parts. For example, the grass, and the flowers, and I don't know. It was a bit messy, so I tried to let go, and not to worry about it too much. In the end, I actually like the painting. There are always things I can't do, like with any other, but I'm happy with it. I'm also happy that I got to enjoy the process. Sometimes I put so much pressure on myself that I don't even enjoy the painting itself. But this time I did. So that's nice. I want to work as well on loosening up a bit. I've been doing that all the time, but it still is far from loose. I'm trying to move away from hyper-realism, to realism, to incorporating some abstractions and some parts. Yeah, I think I'm getting there. I'm trying to find that balance. I don't like super abstract things, but also not extremely detailed. Maybe that's why I'm gravitating towards the old pastels. Even my stuff pastels are not super detailed. Some pastels, like eyelashes, eyebrows, but they're specific. Not everything is 100% detailed work. Maybe that's why I feel drawn towards the old pastels, because they don't allow for a lot of detail. How do these new pastels turn out though? They are not colored pencils. I don't know. Let me know what you think. I find it interesting using different brands, because they create a different image and texture. That's quite interesting, because I don't have a lot of experience with new pastels. I don't think I incorporate them, or I don't think that I use them to their full potential. I think it could be nice to plan ahead what I want to do. It could be nice to plan ahead where I want to use gold, or where I want to use neon yellow to create texture and maybe a little bit of volume. I don't know. They work different and they look different. Maybe I could find a way where I can combine them both in a better way. Because here you can see a clear separation or differentiation. Because one is much more clean and chunky than the other. It makes texture, and the other one is super supple and smooth. And by the way, I'm sorry about the lighting. It was raining, or very, very gray, and I had to use the lamp. The lighting is inconsistent. I did my best, and you think I have been thinking. I've also edited in a separate video. The roses of the face, where you can see everything that I'm doing, and I'm explaining how I use my pastel. And that will already be up on my page. So, the link is below if you want to check it. And I hope you enjoyed it. I hope it was useful and entertaining. And if you have any questions or suggestions, please leave them below. And have a nice day. Bye bye.