Elephant, Pastel Painting, Demo

You may have read here in my blog that this house we are renting in Silver City, New Mexico, has elephant knick-knacks everywhere. I decided to paint an elephant for the landlady. I found a great reference photo on wetcanvas.com by MonicaB. Many artists post photos to use as reference photos for painting on the site. Thanks, Monica. **Note , I heard from Monica Burnette, the photographer, she is also a painter, check out her web page. Nice work.

I printed out the photo and traced the outline of the elephant onto a piece of Pastelbord by Ampersand in the gray color. I traced it to save time and get the proportions right as I know zilch about elephants. I did not do an under painting as the board was already a color that would work well with the subject.

I then did a start with Nupastels to get an idea of color and feel of the elephant.



I developed it a little further, checking out the background and deciding how much detail I wanted there. The elephant has lots of "design" going on in its ears, so I thought a plainer diffused background would be good. I started to work with softer pastels in what ever brand. Color and value made the decision of which stick to use.

Then I got into the zone and forgot about taking more photos along the way. Sorry. When I paint in pastels I work all over the painting. What ever color I put on the main focal point, is included all over the painting.


I am pleased with this painting, I hope she likes it, too.

Taking a photo of this was difficult. The blue just jumps out and the original photo looks all blue purple and opposed to this corrected version with more reddish in it. This is pretty close on my monitor. I work on an iBook in the summer and I am sure the display is different from most desktop computers.