I follow an artist named Lena Moz, whose work inspires many of my own pieces. She runs art challenges and generously shares reference photos from her travels worldwide. Additionally, if you follow her on Patreon, you can use the photos for your personal work.
I have done these in the past and have used watercolor in a small sketchbook to interpret the scenes. This time I started with Conté à Paris crayons on smooth newsprint and moved over to hard and soft pastels.
I think I am most happy with the value contrast in this pastel sketch.
The original plan was to do a one-color sketch, but I added highlights in white on newsprint.
Then, after adding highlights, I wondered how darker shadow values would look. I used Faber-Castell’s number 247 soft pastel, Indanthrene Blue for those dark values.
I enjoyed this new to me technique and it could be something I explore further in the future.
Below are some of the initial Conté à Paris pastel sketch studies.
These studies help me understand the forms and composition I wanted to explore.
They are very fast, usually a few minutes of sketching.
