Oil pastel portrait

I sketched this face few days ago on a page in my altered book. It was ment to be a test using different brushes and different strokes to see how that alters the result. Instead, I ended up using oil pastels. I would have liked stronger colors, but I don;t know how to blend oil pastels other than use white or another light color on top. I seldom use white in paintings because I find it take the mojo out of the colors. Also, the blending is less precise and I am learning to not get caught up in this. Different medium, different feel. After all this is the whole point of the exercise.

It just crossed my mind I could try using the blending stump or one of those rubber tipped blenders (disclaimer: I am not sure they are called blenders and I do not yet have one as they are not cheap. I am not sure there are any cheap art supplies sold in the art stores! There... I had to vent a bit, back to pastels ...) to see if I can get a more precise line. Just for the sake of the exercise. If it becomes too precious, I will mess it up anyway as I don't like too much preciousness ....

And at the same time, I remembered the shoe box full or oil paints reminiscent from my oil painting days. It seems now logical that one of the next experiments will be a face using oil paints. For that though I need a stronger support. Might recycle some old canvass ....hmmm

In the meantime, here is the Pastel Lady:


PS. The above mentioned rubber blenders are actually rubber shapers - ment for pushing paint around... duh...