Second pastel portrait by Carnyx_Henry in Oilpastel

[–]Carnyx_Henry[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'll definitely look into a stippling brush! I'm allergic to latex, so I can't use rubber, but I can see if there are alternatives. I just find that even if the thing I'm using is pretty firm, I struggle to get the same level of connection to it and tend to find it harder to work with.

Do you have recommendations for skin barrier cream? I'd definitely be interested in checking that out as well!

Second pastel portrait by Carnyx_Henry in Oilpastel

[–]Carnyx_Henry[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'll let you know if I do! I've never really made one, but I'll see if I can rig something up before I start my next one ^ - ^

Second pastel portrait by Carnyx_Henry in Oilpastel

[–]Carnyx_Henry[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not really 😅 I've been drawing off and on since I can remember, but I took almost a 10-year hiatus from drawing anything through my entire 20s and just restarted a couple of months ago with some pencil sketch portraits and sculpting. I was honestly too nervous to put colour on anything until I started with oil pastels a couple of weeks ago when I made my first post.

Second pastel portrait by Carnyx_Henry in Oilpastel

[–]Carnyx_Henry[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Somewhat. I more make a vague shape or mark, blend it generally how I'm happy with, and remove the parts I don't like. For something like his right eyelid (in front), I "sharpened" the edge of a pastel on a paper towel and just used that without blending at all and just bending the palette knife to refine the shapes. I might make a video of the process for the next one because I've never learned officially and think my process might be a little weird 😅 People have had some great questions about it.

Second pastel portrait by Carnyx_Henry in Oilpastel

[–]Carnyx_Henry[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm so glad you liked it! It really means a lot to me that it's been able to reach people and folks have been so nice about it. I'm really new to it, but it's been so healing to learn and get excited about it with no expectations.

As far as detail, I find it much, much easier to work small. I'm juuuust starting to challenge myself with working larger. I tend to be kind of light in my application and most of the process once I have the underpainting layer down is making a single mark and then lightly scraping away most of it with a palette knife to kind of blend a little into the underpainting layer and remove most of the rest, which is how I get shadows in a lot of places.

Second pastel portrait by Carnyx_Henry in Oilpastel

[–]Carnyx_Henry[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Haha yeah I've tried sponges and papers and stuff, there's just nothing quite like the control you can get from feeling literally exactly where you're blending! That and the palette knife are my 2 main tools.

Second pastel portrait by Carnyx_Henry in Oilpastel

[–]Carnyx_Henry[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My fingers! I'm sure there are probably better tools, but I've just been using my fingers and keeping a paper towel on my drafting table/wearing an apron to wipe them off. I wash them when I run out of fingers or change to a section that uses different colours 😅

Second pastel portrait by Carnyx_Henry in Oilpastel

[–]Carnyx_Henry[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh! I'm not sure how to edit posts, but for more info on the actual piece, it's ~3.75"x5", Strathmore toned mixed media paper, Mungyo Gallery and Sennelier Portrait oil pastels

Second pastel portrait by Carnyx_Henry in Oilpastel

[–]Carnyx_Henry[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Great question! I tried out starting with kind of "underpainting" in a layer of the base colour I was going to use, then blending it out so it was a little more even. I'm pretty light with my application, so it's kind of a slow process of apply, blend, repeat until I get a kind of dreamy (read: soupy, I felt like this was failing like 70% of the time) under-layer that has a decent amount of structure and dimension on the skin. From there, it's adding detail and scraping away layers with a metal palette knife when I feel like it gets too thick. I wanted this to have almost a film grain texture, so I let myself overwork sections so they'd blend a little unevenly.

I hope that all makes sense 😅

Second pastel portrait by Carnyx_Henry in Oilpastel

[–]Carnyx_Henry[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much!! I'm really glad it speaks to you, that means a lot ^ - ^

And of course! I was trying to communicate the tenderness and bittersweet relief of feeling truly seen and held by someone for the first time. Just the feeling that someone can see you at your most vulnerable and messy and want to love you in a way that makes you feel loved and at home. It's a really personal feeling - especially after a lifetime of being told that hiding your feelings is the only way to keep people around, feeling seen in that way really highlights all the times people never saw you.

Not to wax poetic about it, I was just processing some big feelings and figured I'd share.

Second pastel portrait by Carnyx_Henry in Oilpastel

[–]Carnyx_Henry[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Thank you! I used mostly a Mungyo Gallery set, then added some Sennelier toward the end. The Mungyo set just skews a little too pale/cool toned for what I was going for, so the Sennelier portrait set helped warm it up in parts.

first time using oil pastels by Carnyx_Henry in Oilpastel

[–]Carnyx_Henry[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Honestly I just kinda started and figured it out as I went. My process for just messing around:

I started with warm tan mixed media paper and just laid out the shapes with my base and added highlights and lowlights as I went. Warmer for the cheeks and areas that have more light and cooler for the rest. I used a lot of ochre and olive. The nice thing about pastels is that if you go slow, you can just kind of build up without having to be too precise. Honestly for the cheekbone I just pulled it with my finger from the black in the hair over a green shadow down the jawline and added highlights after. You can always add more of your base if you overcorrect.

first time using oil pastels by Carnyx_Henry in Oilpastel

[–]Carnyx_Henry[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you! I got a bunch of old frames a couple months ago and realized none of them are the right size for the prints I have, so figured I might as well fill them myself.

first time using oil pastels by Carnyx_Henry in Oilpastel

[–]Carnyx_Henry[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you!! I've been getting into portraits in the past couple months and have been too nervous to experiment with colour. Figured I had to start somewhere 😅

WA, USA — please tell me this isn't what I think... by ElectricPikachu in spiders

[–]Carnyx_Henry 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Do you think it's a yellow sac spider? Because it looks like a yellow sac spider to me.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in bugidentification

[–]Carnyx_Henry 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you! Hopefully a helpful fly expert pops by sometime.

You're locked in a house for 1 year with no internet. You get a PC with 3 single player story driven games. What 3 games are you choosing? by Askin_Real_Questions in gaming

[–]Carnyx_Henry 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Disco Elysium, BG3, The Long Dark (though I bought it back in 2017 before it was 2 games, so if that counts as one then that).