I love the pose of these girls, love how the light shines on their beautiful faces. In real life, the portraits are much darker on the dark side. I will try and get better photos, but have taken a hundred and they still don't really show the details and coloring exactly right.
This is colored pencil on dark red Mi Teintes pastel paper. I love this paper personally, and chose it because it's almost black but warmer and I think it works with dramatically lit subjects.
I had a question from a tweetpal who wanted to know how I blend the colored pencil so you don't see the pencil strokes? Here's my answer. The way I like to do that is with a lot of layers, and I do mean a lot in some spots. I also use a cut stencil brush to polish the skin and push it right into the pits of the paper so no paper shows. I use dull "points" to glaze color on. I also love to use the sides of the pencil "lead". It makes it nice and subtle...a nice light touch. I only use sharp points at the end for details, which don't even show in this photo...the eyelashes, the transitions in colors...
Anyway, I spent about 10 times on this as I do a dog portrait! I learned a lot that I will be able to use in my next human portrait! I hope you enjoy it! Robin
I'm artist, Robin Zebley. I've done hundreds of pet portraits over the past 8 years and now am building my portfolio of "human" portraits! My site is "http://robinzebley.com
Posts
