Elephant day 6

I've been adding tones today, mainly using purple pastel. I must admit the head shape of the elephant has been troubling me. I'm going to move on to the body, and add the bush either side of the elephant which is casting some fantastic shadows on the elephants ears and body.

Elephant Wip day 5

So far I've been very impressed by pastelmat paper. I'm putting layers on, soft on hard, hard on soft, soft on soft.....,so far no problems with pastel overload. Now I've a decent coverage on the paper my pastels aren't disappearing quite so fast. I can however see by the state of the floor that I've use much more pastel with this paper.

Elephant day4

Still working into the detail, its a very slow process. Had a slight reshape of the trunk too. So far no problems with the pastel paper taking extra layers.

Elephant wip day 3

Today I'm starting to test out this paper. On top of a thick layer of very soft pastel I have begun to work in some textures, details and highlights, so far, there appears to be lots of tooth left to the paper, and the layers are still applying okay. If this was my usual Mi-Teintes paper I would have sprayed it with a layer of fixative at this point. I've found because I've not had to spray it I can blend and push round the layers of pastels, more like a painting.

Elephant wip day 2

I only had another hour to spare on this today. I've been looking at painterly pastel techniques recently, using the pastel more like a brush, rather than trying to draw with them in the traditional sense. I started this painting by looking at the way the elephant breaks up its space. I've tried to look at the abstract shapes of the whole composition, rather than looking just at an elephant.
The colours I've used are bold, I'm trying to feel the form of the elephant, and capture the movement as it walks out of the composition towards you.
I've also had another little tinker with my last painting, so thought I'd share the final signed version with you.