Allan's Art in Arlington

 Pastel pencil of Letha.

 Pepper , the sweetest dog.   Pastel pencil on Pastelmat 16x12.  

 Had to do a portrait of this beautiful famous dog! 

Another portrait of a President!   This is pastel pencil on Ampersand board, a sandy surface that works great if the sand is there but any flat spots from erasing are impossible to cover.  Had a couple places i had to use fixative on, a spray that makes the surface kind of tacky and will hold the pigment.  11x14.

Pastel on Canson paper approximately 16x20. I  took a portrait class from Daniel Green at his annual summer workshop in his home in North Salem NY back in 2005.   He demonstrated a pastel portrait one evening from a live model that I was absolutely mesmerized with.  I have been using his techniques of marking off the head into four equal sections, using Nupastels to lay in the drawing and then working from dark to light with softer pastels.  I did this painting 4 or 5 years ago and have learned so much since then.  This was a quick painting to give my mother for Christmas.  My grandmother has since passed away but this painting hangs in my mom's home for her to remember how special and loving my grandmother was.  I also have my grandfather posted in this blog in another post.  We miss you MawMaw!

Started this pastel of my step father. Haven't done a pastel in awhile. Was really fun getting back into it.

Pastel on canson: Work in progress of my youngest daughter Abby. Doing the pastel as a study for an oil painting to come later.  Plan to paint all three daughters again. I have been studying with a very talented artist here in Memphis named Frank Morris who does astounding work. http://www.frankmorrisportraits.com My current goal is to become better at judging values and edges.

This is Jenna even younger. I snapped this picture of her playing in the back yard. I loved the expression on her face and had to paint her. The quality of the photo is bad for now. Had to take without a flash since it is under glass and the glare kills the picture.

This is my youngest daughter Abby when she was much younger. Very smart and talented dancer. She has so many friends and loves her IPOD.

This is Jenna my middle daughter when she was younger. Also very talented in art and piano. She recently won valedictorian of her middle school.

This is my oldest daughter Megan. She is a very talented artist and guitar player and a wonderful person.

16x20 pastel: Here's a portrait of Jenna another one of my daughters. Have done several of this same picture in pastel and oil. I have all three pencil portraits hanging in my office at work.

18x24 pastel on sanded board: Did this portrait of my mom last year for her Christmas present. Came out very nice but she didn't like that I left a few wrinkles! Almost a disaster as when she opened the wrapping the picture as smeared with dark pastel dust from her hair. The long ride to her house had vibrated the pastel dust over her face. Luckily was able to fix and all was fine. This was the first time I had worked with sanded board and found that I could not erase the same way I did on canson paper.

Also did the same old post office in pastel just to try out a new medium. Have used pastels to do portrait work in the past and love how you can get such bright color and much less mess to clean up after. It's harder to get the clean lines that you can with an oil brush but it gives a much more painterly effect. Again I just made up the background in that I don't know where the building was originally located. I'll post if I find out!