Revised photos of the Portrait of a Young Girl, Pastel,19"/24"
 

I remade the photos of the picture so here are some better version of it. As I mentioned the last time: it is a pastel of 19"/24", 3 months of work and my third pastel (was initially a preparation for an oil). The picture was selected as Top 30 recently at the PSOA 2005 show.

I'm speechless, this is amazing. I'm amazed at the detail in this portrait that you achieved with pastels. How did you do that?!

Welcome back, Sergio! I agree with Mary - this is incredible, with amazing detail. Is it really only 19" x 24", and don't you usually work very large? And not in pastel? This is a big style change for you, isn't it?

More details...
 

Thank You Mary and Linda for the encouragement...
The style change isn't really a big one...
To work on a smaller scale however is more difficult,
especially in pastel...

also here are some more details... the colors aren't really very truthful on the screen... in reality the picture is colder...

Incredible work.

Would you mind sharing materials used (pastel pencils, softer pastels?) and the surface you worked on? Thanks.

Sergio,

Gorgeous. The color harmony is lovely, the gaze is compelling and painting is beautiful.

the technique...
 

Thank You Jimmie and Chris for the comments... The technique is simple: Canson Mi-Teinte paper with Faber Castel Pastel Pencils... Unfortunately however the digital reproduction on the screen does not gives us the slightly "magic" effect which we feel when we are in front of the picture...

Sergio,
Your attention to detail and great ability to bring it forth as something credible is very "Flemish" and brings to mind this school of painting. Congratulations. Very good work.

Carlos

Sergio,
I am only a student so all I can say is...

WOW!!!!!

excuse me while I page up and gawk some more!!!

I'm gawking too. This is stunning Sergio! Carlos is right. It is a rare treat to see such sensitive attention to detail realised in such a credible manner. Do you work under a magnifying glass? How razor sharp do you keep those pastel pencils? Your fine motor skills seem super-human. Welcome back, and thanks for sharing this.

Garth

Sergio, you're on fire. Hot stuff!

Truly beautiful. What a thrill to just sit and look at. Marvin's right, you're on fire. No pun intended.

Thank You John,
Very touched by Your comment
in fact it is hard to do something else when we realize something so precise... So kind of am in lack of inspiration since...

Very honored Marvin by your notice.

In fact this pastel was a preparation for a bigger oil portrait...
which still need to be done...

Hope one day be able to learn a little bit more from your technique!

Dear Garth,

To answer to your very technical questions:

Magnifying glass
I do not work under magnifying glass, because I'll loose the general perception of the painting.

Pencil sharping
Indeed I sharp extremely well my Faber Castell pastel pencils and especially keep them in a dry place. The sharping of the pencils took me around 50% of the time I've spent on this work... Meanwhile I sharp them, I glaze at the drawing and think about it.

Hand trembling
Shall never start the work before my hands are trembling so the process of the sharpening helps. To finish the eyes had to fix my hands in such a way that only my fingers could move and like in shooting from guns, draw only from Expiration.

Concentration
But to tell the truth, to succeed the eyes like that I had to be in an extreme concentration. I was about to finish a huge 77"/99" group portrait so it was easy to get to a smaller scale. However in order to finish, for 3months...

3 months of total isolation
I had to close myself in Seattle in a basement with just a branch of Cherry tree coming to my window and receive food from a hole outside... Our house is surrounded by (what I call) tropical rain Forest so that monumental American nature and energy from the source (Vulcan's and Indians spirits) helped me to take the shock...

And of course the little squirrels, blue birds and my two little always laughing boys...

:):)

Hello Carlos,
the Flemish side is too much may be...
I would rather associate this drawing with the Persian Miniature Tradition.

Hello Patricia,
Unfortunately I must consider myself also as a Student yet in Art so comments from other Students are just welcome.

Sergio, I find her eyes mesmerizing and I am amzed at your skill of rendering them so lifelike. The eyes remind me of Luis Royo's women's eyes, but I think you have even surpassed him.

By the way, Luis Royo does fantasy art, beauties and beasts in surreal settings.

Sergio, I am drooling. Stunned and drooling.

Hello Enzi,

Thanks for the comments.
In fact I WAS very inspired by Persian Portrait Traditions of the Shahs of the 19 Century... (Along with Russian Icons and Ingres). There is a HUGE & magnificent piece in the Louvre representing an oil portrait of the Shah... made in the miniature-decorative style.

Also was very impressed by your website... The portrait of the Black Gentleman is very intriguing!

As what concerns Louis Royo's illustrations... as an enthusiastic Icon painter find it not exactly in my philosophy... Would prefer to discover some rest of Zoroastrian frescoes instead!

Hello Lisa,

Thanks for visiting my pastel portrait...

I LOVED YOUR PAINTINGS!!!!
I consider that to achieve that lightness in Art is one of the most difficult stuff... I imagine it must be something linked with your character...

Your Football players or classical portraits of men sitting in chairs are giving me hopes that one day I could be also so "easy riding" in paintings...

May be we must live in the South for that?

Sergio,

Well I think it has all been said so I say ditto to the above.

I would like to point out how amazed I was with the sensitivity of this lovely lady and how she is almost porcelain like compared to the bravado of your normal pencil firefighters, it is wonderful!

:thumbsup: Beth

Sergio, you are too nice to me. I may be your biggest fan. It is nice to have lots of work and I think you will have so much of it soon we won't see you much here! When you are rich and famous don't forget to come back and say hello. You are such a talented person with a gift for detail. I think if I saw one of your paintings in person I could stare at it forever.

Sergio, I have to look that particular Shah's portrait up, the next time I am in Paris. I don't remember seeing it on previous trips, but there is so much to look at at the Louvre that I get visual overload.

I am always amazed at the amount of detail in the miniatures, especially of the post Safavid period and love to someday fuse their intricate application of detail into my own work.

Thanks for the compliment on the web site and Bachi-Bazouk. I have to admit, I was under the spell of 100 different excuses, to avoid working on him. I am at the final stages of cleaning up the painting and that seemes more work than the initial phases. Once I saw your work though, I chided myself for being lazy and went right back to work.
The drive to perfection is an insane love affair. For the longest time you can't stand any sort of seperation and then all of a sudden you can't get away far enough, because you feel you are going to suffocate if you hang around one more second.

Hello Lisa,

To become rich and famous is the dream of businessmen and actors.
My dream is however to realize THE PORTRAIT which will shine through ages as Mona Lisa!

:)

Thank You Elisabeth for the fact that you step by constantly to see my new works... In fact they aren't really many... one per year perhaps... They are all kind of technical experiences... still trying to find my way of seeing the world and my style which would be distinguished immediately... In fact I consider one of the biggest challenge of a painter how to find unity by keeping a diversified technical approach.

I can't believe the fine detail you get with pastels. This is brilliant. My attempt at pastels was a line no thinner than my little finger, I seem to round the edge in an instant. Did you really do this in pastels? Believable but Unbelievable!!! How do you sharpen them, they fall to bits when I do it.

Hello Ngaire,

I use pastel pencils,
and sharp them with 3 different kind of cutter (cutter, razor, surgical knife),
and put the pastel pencils for the night in a dry place and before working into an Owen. Also for one minute of work I sharp around 3 or 4 pastel pencils. So before starting I sharp dozens of them.

Oh Sergio, I sure hope you're joking about this! I think that Michele Rushworth should come around with some doughnuts to push through the hole. ;)

If you lived in Arizona you would only need to leave your pencils out in the sun for 15 minutes to dry them out.

I'm happy to see this thread come up again to see this painting one more time, it's so beautiful.

Sergio, thank you very much for sharing info on sharpening pastel pencils. what brand do you like best?. Your work shows exquisite technique, thanks again.

Hello Linda,

Was trembling when I saw your painting of figure on the rock!
Such a sensibility to the sea has to happen only in a place like Arizona...

Besides, (serious!), if I would paint in Arizona, not only I would not need to dry my pencils but I would not need to paint at all! I think when we are surrounded by such a NATURE we can just contemplate it and contemplate....

more pics of the portrait
 

more pics of the portrait

Sergio,

This has a silvery, luminous quality that does come through in the image. I know how frustrating it is to not be able to capture the quality of the original--my work never looks that good in reproductions no matter how hard I try--but I think this work has a powerful "magic" quality that shows up in the photos. It is a work that bears looking at more than once to really grasp all its subtleties. Beautiful!

Alex

Sergio, I am totally in awe.

I just do not understand how you can get that kind of detail in pastel.!!

are you a genius.? :sunnysmil

it is absolutely superb.!!

Hello Alexandra!

Just loved your landscapes!
The energy of these places is like an explosion
coming out and blinds us!!!!

Creative summer!
Sergio

Do not forget to look at a Russian landscape painter named Shishkin...

Good Morning Tricia,

Saw your pastels and think there is a huge potential in them!
Hope Australia and the old masters gives you a lot of inspiration :)

Sergio

as what for the details: it is a matter of patience and special food regime...