First Pastel & Commission of 2020

I hope all of you are having a great beginning to this new year and new decade.  It's hard to believe it is 2020!

I was very happy to start the new year with a new pastel commission.  My client had wanted a pastel done of his mom's horse and gave me a couple of photos to work from.  He didn't want anything too large so I cropped the original photo so that most of the picture would be of the horse and not the barn.

I wished I had taken more pictures of the WIP (work in progress) but once I got started I didn't stop to take many photos at all.  I will try next time to take the time and photograph the WIPs. They can be  interesting to look at when the pastel is completed.

As always, somewhere in the middle, it gets really ugly when working on it and can be rather intimidating even after all these years of doing pastels.  I'm always happy and relieved to work through the ugly parts and get to a pastel that I'm happy with.

I can say I'm happy with the results and most importantly so is my client.

Here is the reference photo, a couple of WIPs, and the final pastel.

Mom's Horse

8" x 10" Pastel on Velour