PASTEL baby portrait // pastel painting tips + materials I use

Hi everyone, happy new year and I hope you are doing great. If you follow me on Instagram you probably know of my latest obsession. I'm on a strong pastel geek at the moment. I had only tried pastels once, very very long ago, and the only thing I remember is me not being too keen on the mess that I made. Dirty hands and lots of dust everywhere. For some reason I've been wanting to give them a go again. I don't know why, but I guess because recently I've been enjoying other techniques that I used to think would never agree with me. Well, back in the day it was just digital for me anyway. After quite a bit of research I decided to go for it and bought a few Stabilo Scarbo cellos to play with and next day I went for a couple more and then some more and basically I bought all the lightfast colors from the range. I need my paints to be lightfast. At the store they also have big pastels and after playing with the ones that I already had I went to get a couple of shades that I felt I was missing. I buy colors as I feel that I need them rather than buying full sets. And so I ended up ordering some from Caran d'Ache as well, of course, and I love them, of course. Yeah, they are all different but I try not to repeat shades so that I have a nice range. But yeah, they combine nicely together. I was gifted many years ago a set of Conté pastels, pencils, but I find them to be quite scratchy and not as pleasant to use so I only reach for a few colors. To sharpen them I definitely use an exacto knife because some don't fit on regular sharpeners or they break if they do so I just go with a knife. You also get a nice long tip that is very useful to have. As for the paper, the one that I've been trying is and so far I really like it. It's very sturdy, locks some of the dust, making the process less messy which I love, allows for many layers and it feels nice. I think it's great quality but I cannot compare it with others because I haven't used any. Once I do I will update here or maybe I will make a comparison video. Let me know if you'd like something like that. I think it would be interesting to see similar subjects but different papers. Let me know if you'd be interested. As for the process, I start painting in the same way as when I paint on watercolor paper. First I do one sketch separately on cheap paper and cover the back of it with graphite and then I transfer it tracing over. You could do this with tracing paper but I don't have any and this works just as well. I transfer a few key points and then draw everything with one of the pencil pastels. In the case of this painting I think it was burnt sienna from the stabilo range. It doesn't really matter because it will blend. I'm experimenting quite a lot and there are many ways to approach painting but here because the paper has this light cream color I felt like starting by placing the shadows. If the paper was dark maybe I would start with the lights but you know I like jumping back and forth and I never follow the same rules. Not in this one but I've been combining pastel pencils with pastel sticks in some of my other portraits. The ones that I have are from Rembrandt and as far as I know they are and feel moderately hard. I think they are between the very soft pastels, the very soft soft pastels and hard pastels. I think they are great for layering, have good lightfastness and I like that they don't contain heavy metals such as cadmium or cobalt. I'd love to try some from Schmincke or Sennelier so maybe I'll get a couple open stock. I hope you like watching this piece coming together and feel free to ask anything in the comment section. I know I barely touched the surface but keep in mind they are new to me and I have plenty of things to try. The good thing is that somehow they feel kind of close to oil painting in the sense that is a very straightforward way of applying paint so I don't feel there's a huge learning curve before you can feel confident, if that makes any sense. The paper and the pastels, no brushes or mediums or different oils or anything. So yeah, I'm enjoying them a lot and I hope it was interesting to watch. If you liked it please give it a like and subscribe for more if you didn't already. Thanks for watching and see you next time. Bye bye!