My Art Journal

Very nice work! I'm impressed. I have never tried pastels.
My mother is really good with them.
I don't work with colors at all, they distract me for some reason.

Haha don't worry, try the cheaper ones first I reckon, they don't give as nice a feel, but you'll waste a lot of pastel when you first start learning to layer, and the decent ones are bloody expensive!!

I work in Rembrandt soft pastels (land scape selection), Franchville medium/hard pastel squares, Omega (assorted greys), CarbOthello pastel pencils, and Derwent pastel pencils. I'm also eyeing off a set of Fabercastelle pit pencils, which are apparently beautiful to use.

As for paper, I feel safest working on Canson Me-Tientes, which is probably one of the cheaper varieties out there, but I enjoy working on it as it has a fantastic tooth which can take many layers (essential for my method of working, building up to about 20 layers in some places!) and is easy to clean up after for packaging, as it holds onto the pastel quite well. I've had a go on velour... HARD, it doesn't hold the pastel well at all and it takes a special kind of person to be able to get details onto it - I'm definitely not special enough haha!
Pastelmat is also a good choice, it's similar to the Me-Tientes ;)

Oh gosh that's alot to remember! Lol Thanks though im definitely going to look into it one of these days (may have to make a trip to the city to a proper art store though, by the sounds of it!)

Just waiting on approval, then it will be sent off :)

LOVE IT!! Lol ;)

It still stuns me everytime I look at, it really is my boy! :)

I'm extremely pleased to hear that you like it!! As I said in my email to you earlier, I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the improvement in quality of the real thing compared to the photo :)

Now back to Alfie

Done :)