Freckles with pastel

[Elizabeth Schott]

Has anyone ever rendered freckles with pastels? I have a young lady who has tons of them, but does not care if they are there. It is such a part of her character, but I am afraid the results will look like acne.

Is this a technique I could do in the reverse, instead of adding pastel scratching it off? Should they only show in the highlight or shadow area?

[Josef Sy]

Elizabeth,

Are you using chalk or oil pastels?

I've used color pencil before with chalk pastels on faces with freckles and I find it works well.

For oil pastels, You could scratch it off with a palette knife or something sharp.

[Julianne Lowman]

I have accomplished this with simply gliding the broad side of a hard pastel over the area you are wanting to accent. I try to make sure the under-layer is not so built up that the hard pastel doesn't get scraped off, but I've found using soft pastel to offer this kind of accent produces too much color, then when you try to repair it, it simply gets blended with the layers underneath. Experiment on a separated piece of paper to get the righ look. The rougher the surface you're working on also helps this technique. The tooth may be filled with your underlayers, but the peaks will catch the "freckle" color. I then use a kneaded eraser fashioned into a flattened point to remove any unwanted color. Use it softly and you won't remove your established layers. Be careful not to add freckle dots or alter any values by adding these cute features. Often it's not the freckles we see and love, but the personality behind them.

Just a suggestion, give it a try and tweak if necesary. I'd love to see your finished piece!