Pastel life drawing

It is such a confusing controversy that is more interesting than heated, and yet the question remains: is it pastel drawing or pastel painting?

Our figure drawing group had a wonderful evening last night working with a new model. A lovely petite woman with a short black pixie hair-cut. We took full advantage of her beautiful back when we set up this lounging back pose with some dramatic lighting near her head. I was working with Nupastel on a brick red half sheet (about 12" x 19") of Colourfix paper. I was struggling to get the shadows as rich and deep as I wanted - I just didn't have a dark enough brown. So I started incorporating…

January's phenomenal pastels range in subject from landscape to figures to still life all in varying levels of detail, verisimilitude, and abstraction.

John Fernandes