So I set up a canvas and painted my soul. But then I realized they don’t make black dark enough for this project. So I picked something else.
I found a beautiful series of photos on Pinterest of ballet dancers. I’m into ballet, but the photos were so stunning that I wanted to paint one of them. I won’t post them here, they aren’t mine to post, but they really were pretty inspiring.
So my friend, Mark, who knew I was nervous to do skin tones and paint any type of realism, told me to start drawing it out. He likes to draw in oil pastels, so he also suggested working through the colors that way. Oil pastels were never really an interest of mine but I thought I’d give it a shot. After all, he takes a lot of my suggestions, I should take his too when he offers some.
Did you know oil pastels are nothing like painting? Yeah, I didn’t think that one through as far as I should have. I got through a sketch and then ruined it with pastels.
I think the last time I used them was almost 20 years ago in art classes. I kind of forgot you could really layer colors like other mediums. So my whites were nowhere near white enough and I just kept smearing colors around but not getting what I wanted out of it. As you can see it’s nowhere near done and I threw down the pastels in disgust.
I’m discouraged and I’m opting to let this project sit a bit longer. I’m just not ready for skin tones and realism. I know I won’t do it justice and I’ll be disappointed.
So it’s time to plan out something else out for this canvas that will fit in around my cartoon house.