Girl in Europe: oil pastels

This is a drawing of a picture of a friend when she was in Europe. Oil pastels. The background is all messed up and not detailed enough and sketchy and it shows bits of white and it kind of bleh. The face is ok but I need better control and coverage with the pastels. I gave her the picture though and she recognised 1) that it was of her and 2) the photo I'd used as a reference, so that's good at least.

That said, my boyfriend couldn't identify who the drawing's of, even though he's known this particular friend of mine for nearly two years now.

I might have to concede that the jury's out on the recognisability of this drawing.

(18 January 2011)

Jake Gyllenhall: oil pastels

My former housemate left behind a box of oil pastels when she moved out. I found them the other day and decided to try them out. My first attempt was amazingly bad, but then I youtubed it. You're meant to layer pastels! And blend them! Who would have thought?

I used coloured pencils to draw the eyes, because the pastels were quite chunky and it's hard doing fine detail with them. I had a look in an art store today for pastel pencils (as seen on youtube) but they were about $30 for a dozen so I passed on those. The whole box of oil pastels only cost $3.50! I'm not going to bother buying expensive art supplies until my skill level can justify it

(An aside: I drew this from a picture in a magazine. I'm terrible at recognising celebrities, and thought it was Ewan McGregor until I read the article.)

My boyfriend described this one as "ok, but he looks melty". My dad told me it looked like he had a black eye.

(16 January 2011)