It’s Halloween, and Little One is out to dress up! Like last year, she decided to be a witch but has a new costume. She made it herself! This time in purple with some cute drawings of cats and ghosts. How would you like to see it? I’ve made a little drawing of her cute costume using various mediums of pastels: in pans, sticks and pencils to adjust to the different areas.
Trying Some New Paper
About a year ago, I went to a workshop in which I learned to use Pan Pastels and used some really quality paper for the purpose. It is Pastelmat by Clairefontaine. Good stuff, that was but quite pricey. Thick as almost cardboard at 360 gsm. Another thing I liked about it is the smooth surface which was still rough enough to handle pastels and let the colours adhere with minimal smudging. Too often pastel-purpose papers tend to be too textured which I don’t like; the rough patterns show through and you need to use a lot of pastels to cover it up. Although I bought two pads of this Pastelmat at the time, I never got around to using them because they are quite expensive, and I wanted to wait till I had more experience with pastels. Now I think I was ready for it! So here I did a rough sketch of my idea using some pastel pencil.
Pan Pastel Background
I used some grey and blue for the background, using my set of Pan Pastels. They’re great for backgrounds as you can sponge them in on large surfaces. Plus they’re not as messy as the sticks and spread quite smoothly particularly with this paper. I really like it!
More Pan Pastels
I continued using the Pan Pastels for Little One’s face and purple costume. Challenging part was working around the little details on the hat but I managed using the edge of a triangular sponge. Having quality paper like the Pastelmat certainly enabled an even spread of the colour, giving a velvety appearance. Very pleased!
Tiny Details
For the small details like the cute decorations on the hat and dress as well as the hair, I used soft pastel sticks. I love the set by Faber Castell! They also come in mini sizes which is half the stick. Given I don’t draw with them much, they come in handy in that size and are easier to handle. Pastel pencils (by Derwent) were used for the finer details such as the eyes, lashes and cats’ whiskers. And here we go!
Once again, a cute and simple piece. Little One looks so sweet and adorable even dressed as a witch! I have now more experience using pastels, Pan Pastels in particular, and am pleased out it all turned out. Furthermore, the colours go well together and despite being rather vivid colours, they suit the Halloween theme well. And I also love this new paper! It doesn’t come cheap of course but it was certainly worth it. Something to be used for special occasions like this!
My Kawaii Quarter 