Among the new goodies I ordered with a recent gift certificate, were two sketching sets. One is a sketching set of "hard" soft pastels. When selecting pastels for use, I not only look for color, value, and intensity; but also for different degrees of softness. Very soft pastels will fill the tooth of a surface more quickly, and are great for coverage. Harder soft pastels are better for actually drawing with the pastel, details, and refining. Many people work the hard pastels over the soft or vice versa. I have found myself doing either depending on what I was working on. The other sketch set I purchased in the pic below has graphite and charcoal sticks, as well as pastel, charcoal, and graphite pencils.
The first pic below is just using the pencils in the second sketching set. I do like the nice availability of different values in the set, as well as having the option of filling in larger areas with the graphite or charcoal sticks if desired.
This next face was done using items from both the new sketching sets as well as some other soft pastels I added for good measure. I started with a loose sketch in charcoal pencil. Then, I used very soft Unison pastels over the harder pastels in this instance. At the very end, I went back over some areas with pastel pencil and charcoal pencil just to refine the details.
Finally; while not using either sketching set, I tried another face on the new Shizen paper. I still don't think this paper is best suited for more detailed faces, but love the look of the background. I keep thinking maybe I'll do a bunch of swatches on this paper and combine them in some kind of mixed media piece. Or just use the papers for painting blooms and such.
I look forward to exploring all these new items more, and posting the results here!
I hope everyone has a great weekend! Until next time, take care!
