Experimenting With Chalk Pastels

Admittedly, I cannot draw worth a tinker's dam.  However, I had this little girl in my head tonight and she just came out on the page.  This is in my "Exploration" journal which is a modified sketch book that I do all kinds of weird things and experiments in.  This book has rather thin sketch paper.  Sometimes I work in it directly, as  I did this time, and sometimes I do tip-ins.

I was generously given some pan pastels by my friend, Susan Miller and I had been itching to play with them ever since they arrived a couple of weeks ago.  So just after eating dinner with the hubs and watching one of our "together" TV programs, this little cutie came out of my head and onto the page.

The pastels I used were Decorating Chalks Kit #3 (pan pastels) by  Craf-T Products.  Kit 3 has 9 colors ranging from pale yellow to charcoal, and Susan generously sent me 4 other individual colors -- a reddish orange, pink,  gold and a soft brown.

I applied all the pastels with a #2 flat sable brush, and rubbed some with my finger to blend.  The sketch was completed with a Sakura Gelly Roll pen in black.

Definitely going to play some more and see where all this leads me.

Drawing Practice

My drawing skills are limited by what I can see, and the fact that I never got to take any kind of art lessons as a kid growing up or in school.  To my parents, that was fodder.  Focusing on academics was their idea of what I was supposed to learn in school.  It is not what I wanted to do for sure.

So, I practice.  The top photo shows a postcard I received in happy mail from Jenny MacRunnel in Iowa.  As you can see, there is a delightful bird on this side (more on the other side).  Since there was a handly piece of parchment paper sent along with this postcard, I ripped off a piece of it and had a little go at sketching with my trusty #2 pencil.  Not a bad effort.  But clearly I need to practice, practice, practice. "Round" is my nemesis, followed closely by shading.  And the journey continues.