I've finally completed my latest artwork. This pastel portrait of a zebra was a lot of fun to do but very time consuming. The difficulty for this piece lay in the design of the stripes. Getting it right took a while but once the basic pattern was established then the rest of the piece seemed to flow more quickly. I titled this artwork 'Peaceful Morning'.
The finished artwork.
Background
I deliberately kept the background very simple in this piece. I wanted the main focus to be on the zebra itself so I just chose very muted colours and kept it very soft and blurred. Had this been more of a narrative painting, I would have used to more detail in the background to establish the environment more clearly. But I often think that portraits work better without any fuss in the background.
Materials
This artwork was done using Fisher 400 sanded paper. (My favourite surface for pastels). I used mostly Carbothello and Derwent pastel pencils for the details. The background was completed using soft pastels sticks. The final artwork measures 12" x 16".
I hope you all like this new artwork. I was really happy with how it turned out. This original artwork is available to purchase from my shop page.