S.I. #5

This is an oil pastel portrait of my friend, Pippi. I met Pippi in the middle of Summer, around July, and I never expected to be more than an acquaintance with her but I soon found myself with a new friend. The pandemic soon got in the way of us seeing each other much at all, but in the time we spent together I learned a lot about her and what a beautiful person she is. My reference photo for this portrait was taken in a warm, peachy light so I wanted to use a material with which I could layer warm tones and create emotion and texture. I was excited to use oil pastels because I feel that the time I spent building up layers of colors and marks to create her portrait created the depth and emotion that Pippi holds. I left the background blank because I feel like there is more to come from our friendship but it's unmapped right now, just as this portrait's backdrop.

This portrait was made using bristol board, tracing paper, Sharpie, and oil pastels. Tracing paper allows me to transfer the main form of a portrait onto paper to be the foundation for me to build off of.

I first took a selfie of Pippi's that she gave me permission to use as a reference, then traced it off of my laptop onto tracing paper, then transferred it onto bristol board by scribbling on the back with a soft graphite pencil, then going over the original line with a hard graphite pencil. This is my first time using oil pastel in a couple of years so something I think that's cool about this portrait is that you can see where I started at the top left portion of her hair and forehead and worked my way down towards her neck. You can tell how my technique improved just while doing this portrait. I tuned into how I could blend colors to create shadows and skin tones. I developed layering skills by building the pastels up on the paper and mixing colors to create highlights and depth and life in the portrait. I'm particularly proud of this portrait; I like the blurred, smudgy look of the major shadow covering her jaw and neck and I like how you can tell there is a lighter shadow coming down from her eyebrow to her cheek on the right side of her face. I'm happy with the way I captured the light reflecting in her left eye and the highlight on her bottom lash line. The nose was a lot of work but I'm proud of the end result because I think I captured the depth and I layered so many different colors onto the nose and I'm happy with how it turned out and the texture that was created, Same goes for the mouth, I am pleased with the way the colors I chose blended together and how nicely the whiteness of her teeth stand out, and then the shadow under her lip and the one spilling into the corner of her mouth on the opposite side pulls it all together and creates a great range of value. the pink of her lips pops and ties into the pink of the eyelid and forehead. I really enjoyed experimenting with the pastels and creating this portrait. If I were to continue, I think I would find a way to add more definition and detail to her hair and clean up the background.