Delayed Gratification

I’ve been working on a pair of heirloom portraits for months now. These life-sized, oil on linen portraits of two lovely siblings have been developing steadily under my constant care. Every stage of the process stewarded with the greatest attention to detail and ongoing collaboration with the wonderful family I was commissioned by. We’ve charted quite a journey together bringing this art to life.

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You know, sometimes we paint for immediate gratification, and enjoy the finished result in just a few hours. Yet at other times—in an effort to create work that will benefit generations to come—we paint with a much longer-term view. This kind of creative work requires much patience and perseverance, but it's well worth the wait knowing that I’m creating art that will last. Perhaps in art-making, as in many areas of life, greater satisfaction is derived from delayed gratification. Looking forward to sharing the finished products with you very soon!

Pastel 100 Competition Honorable Mention Winner

I'm thrilled to announce that my pastel painting, "Prima Ballerina," has won an Honorable Mention in the Portrait & Figure Category of the 15th Annual Pastel 100 Competition, hosted by the Pastel Journal magazine. For the complete list of finalists, visit artistnetwork.com

 I’ve been fortunate to win many competitions over the years and now I help other aspiring artists do the same in my Courses and Workshops.

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Take a look at my upcoming pastel painting courses to see how you can join us to hone your skills and become the next award-winning artist.

Videos No. 2 & 3 Pastel Techniques for Painterly Portraits and Painting Skin Tones in Pastel

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These DVDs are no longer available but if you or looking for more of my educational content visit the Store for the latest videos and books or sign up to learn about our upcoming live workshops and courses.   

New Video: Essential Techniques For Pastel Portraits

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Coming this summer, my new three-DVD set of art instructional videos focused on pastel portraits from North Light DVD. The first video reveals a host of portrait techniques to fill your visual toolbox. Look for the set to be available on artistsnetwork.tv and northlIghtshop.com by August. 

These DVDs are no longer available but if you or looking for more of my educational content visit the Store for the latest videos and books or sign up to learn about our upcoming live workshops and courses.  

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Art About Town, Opening Night Street Party

Live Street Portraits by Alain J. Picard

Westport's Art About Town kicked off with an opening night street party on Thursday night, May 30. I had a wonderful time painting live pastel portraits on the streets of downtown Westport. With all the hustle and bustle of the crowd, the excitement of artists painting, live dance performances, and music, it really was an amazing experience.

6 Basic Skin Types

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While there is a vast array of beautiful people throughout the world and a multitude of ethnic backgrounds, I find it helpful to group them into 6 basic skin types in order to approach the process of painting skin tones in a pastel portrait. Here is a chart I've created representing the 6 basic skin types; pale, fair, medium, olive, naturally brown, and very dark brown/black. My portrait palette box is organized to represent all of these skin types so that I'm always prepared for any skin type I may encounter. Samples of each skin type are represented below. 

If you're passionate about honing your skills in drawing realistic and expressive skin tones, we invite you to join our Painterly Portraits Course. In this comprehensive course, we delve deeply into the art of capturing various hair, skin tones, and facial features with pastels to give your portraits the best photo-realistic look.

My Secondary Palette Box

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In my last post I shared how I set up my Pastel Palette for Portraits today I want to dive into my secondary setup.

This is my secondary palette box. This box of six rows is organized by color families from left to right. Beginning at the left and moving right you'll see cool violet/warm violet, red and orange, yellow/warm green,  green/blue-green, blue, and finishing with neutral grays. As always, I've placed light values at the top, and dark values at the bottom. This palette is wonderful for backgrounds for my portrait subjects as well as just about anything else from still life to landscape. My compliments to John Heilman for the great travel box from HeilmanDesigns.com

In our Painterly Portrait course we not only talk about how to create amazing portraits using pastels but we also talk about efficiency strategies such as this to make your painting time fun and stress-free.

My Portrait Palette Box

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This is my pastel portrait palette, organized by value and color, according to the 6 basic skin types. More on that in another post. Along with the rich soft pastels, there are small batches of hard pastels which have been sharpened to a point and organized in groups of neutral grays (far right), cool flesh tones (right), warm flesh tones (center right), and warm earth tones (upper left) within the box as well. I find these very useful for the small details of the face. As you can see, light values are at the top representing "tints", and dark values are at the bottom representing "shades". Neutral values are known as "tones". Compliments to John Heilman for the Original Box from HeilmanDesigns.com.

In our Painterly Portrait course we not only talk about how to create amazing portraits using pastels but we also talk about efficiency strategies such as this to make your painting time fun and stress-free.