Extended Blind Contour

For this piece of art we had to draw portraits of people without looking at the paper, and then we had to turn it into a finished piece of art. For the blind portraits we had to used pastel, which is something I do not usually use, so I did not know what I wanted to do with the rest of the picture. I thought about doing something mixed media, but then decided that a full pastel picture would be cool. I thien started to think about what to draw, and this was very hard since there are so many things that you could make out of somewhat random lines. I started to think about making a very abstract pictures that almost looks like shattered glass, but then I thought that might be to easy and I really want to make an interesting piece. I then started to focus where each face lied on the paper, and started to notice the one in the top left being out of place, and then got the idea to make that kind of the focal point, and then I started.to see a type of landscape, and went from there

For this picture I pretty much only used pastels on watercolor paper. I had never used pastels for a picture like this, that I had really put effort into blending, using tortillons to do so. The pastels ended up being a fun medium to use, thought a little difficult at first. I found out that i like the way blended pastels use, and one thing that i really like is the way you can blend colors with such ease. One thing about pastels however is that when you use a dark color like black it is really really hard to get it to go away, and usually it will always be in that spot despite trying to scratch it out and blend in lighter colors. The way darker colors don't go away, in my opinion, made some parts of the picture look unnatural which is a little upsetting, but for the future I know what to expect with pastels

The process of making this picture was interesting, and in some ways very similar to the oops drawing. After drawing the blind portraits I felt overwhelmed with the possibilities, but once I started to get the idea of making a type of landscape I began to make an outline of hill like shapes with black pastel. I then started with the brown pastel and started making the hills in the foreground, and then added a grassy look on top. I then colored in the rocks, and started to blend to make everything look natural. after I had the water, and hills colored in, I began on the sky which was difficult to start. I was not sure what colors I wanted to use, but i wanted everything to circle around the lady looking creature that was in the background, I then decided to make it just go down the color wheel to make a rainbow to add a nice pop of color to contrast the darker shades in the foreground. I tried to make a type of mandala design, and I think that it turned out okay.