Oil pastels and portraits

After having a bit of painter's block I decided to scroll through Instagram to help inspire something. I follow a plethora of artists on there that mainly just depress me because of their brilliance but they also inspire me to try new things. This time Linsey Levendall was my inspiration. He uses oil pastels, coloured pencils and graphite pencils to created portraits that come to life out of his sketchbook.

Originally I had drawn a self portrait with just pencils which I normally do and didn't really like the way it had turned out. Even though my portraits never look quite right even this one made me feel uncomfortable. So after looking on Instagram I turned to my oil pastels which I had been itching to use but couldn't think of an interesting way to utilise them.

I absolutely love this portrait, and coming from me that reaction is very surprising. I like the way the pencil works into the oil pastels and created marks that felt smooth and easy to work with. The oil pastel is carved away to create either a lighter space or a dark line with the pencil. I started with just the block colours of oil pastel and worked into the pastels with a 2b pencil making everything just a little bit disjointed. The eyes, the nose not exactly lining up but still giving a likeness to me.

I continued this technique on in my work using an oil painting that I got very annoyed with and gave up on. I thought the anger I felt from the piece, I could reflect in the way I used the oil pastels.

The original photograph the inspired this piece was taken during filming with red paint smothered all over my head. The picture itself is terrifying but this technique has turned that terror into something that I can't quite put my finger on. I do like the portrait but I think I only like how I've created it and what it means, not the portrait itself which confuses me somewhat. The full portrait is full of angst and anger, shown in the pastel strokes but also in the eyes or the subject. I particularly like the way this technique has made the nose and the mouth look, giving them more of a full look and yet the whole portrait looks somewhat unfinished in it's staring, stark quality.