The Breakers, 7 inches by 10 inches, pastel on paper  (Click image for a larger view.)

I used the full gamut of pastels on this painting - hard, soft and pastel pencils. Shooting pastel work can be  challenging because the camera picks up on granular details - so the image often shows pastel dust on the paper, or strokes of certain colors giving them prominence that don’t exist in the actual painting and aren’t seen the same way by the human eye. 

I find it helpful to take pictures throughout the process, for a variety of reasons. First, it helps me see where I have  gone astray with aspects of the drawing. Somehow seeing it distilled on a computer screen makes it easier to see what I need to adjust or change than it is when I’ve been staring at the canvas for too long. Taking lots of breaks to rest the eyes and brain helps, too. 

Secondly even though the camera detects things differently than the eye does, seeing those almost imperceptible differences helps me to see more clearly where something needs refining, not necessarily correcting or changing. Some ways I make these refinements are by gently blotting harsh lines with my finger, or using a different kind of pastel to blend them. For instance, if I’m using a pastel with harder pigment that sticks to the paper roughly, I use a pastel of a similar value (light or darkness) whose pigment goes down more smoothly to soften. Sometimes I use a pastel pencil as a blender over both hard and soft pastels.

This painting is available, so please contact me via the contact form on this website or by sending me an email at beth@bethlowell.com. You can also follow me on social media by clicking the icons in the menu. Thanks for stopping by!