Angry at Nothing

I had a grumpy day today. I don't think I got much sleep last night, and work didn't help. So here's a quick drawing that helped calm me down a bit. It's pretty much how I feel though, angry at nothing.

Fourth Pastel - Indy Cigarette Girl

Ok, here's my fourth pastel. I worked on it over two nights. It's based on a photo of mine included in the post.

This is one of my better and earlier photos. I'm pretty happy with the photo. I think I did do a little tweaking in photoshop getting rid of some background items and darkening the hair to meld into the background.

As for the pastel painting, I'm satisfied with it, I wouldn't say proud, but satisfied. I did draw it using the smoother side of the canson paper and I think that helped. I used black paper but in retrospect I probably should of used a lighter colour as it would have made her skin tone more fair.

Items I know I could have done better are;

1. Right eyebrow: The angle is a little off. Erasing that big of a black area would have made a mess.
2. Eye proportions: the eyes are a little far apart and there's not enough skin between the left eye and the side of her head.
3. Right side of the face: I couldn't get the contours right.
4. Right shoulder: Again, not sure how I could of fixed that without making a mess.
5. Hair ends: I'm not sure how I could of ended the hair better.
6. Background/Trimming: I copped out and just used black.

One cool thing I learned during this is that brown and blue make a good colour that can be used as a shadow for skin tones.

I'm looking for some real critiques so let me know!

My First Pastel - or - I feel like a first grader.

OK, so here's my first pastel. Well actually it's my second. Technically maybe my third. My first was a portrait that I never completed. My second one was so horrible I ripped it to shreds. With two failures I put my pastels away and cried. Well, I didn't cry, but I was a little disheartened. After months of therapy (Actually, I've been busy doing other things like this blog, that I doubt anyone reads other than the Illustration Friday people, but they only look at my weekly entry) I finally got over my first two and I figured I better give it another go. So this my third pastel, although not all that great is somewhat bearable. I did learn a few things while doing this. Here's what I've learned;

First: It's a lot harder than it looks to do a good pastel painting/drawing. I have a couple of books on how to draw/paint using pastels, and boy do they make it look easy.

Second: Don't use the wire side of the canson paper. It's painful to use and you get this annoying screen pattern throughout the drawing/painting. (edit - I found some examples online where this looks ok, I guess I'll try it again)

Third: Pastels and computer mice don't mix. Don't touch anything until you wash your hands. My mouse now has some permanent orange/grey pigment on it.

Anyways, let me know what you think. I'm prepared for the worst.