I made a new mixed media portrait in my art journal!

Creating this portrait was a bit of an adventure. I wasn’t really sure how I would do it and which supplies I wanted to use, other than that I would start by painting the background. This time I used craft acrylic paint (instead of the artist grade paint that I usually use), because it is a bit chalky and gritty, which provides a nice surface for pastel.

I painted the background with several layers of paint, sketched the face with a pastel pencil, and then blocked in the first layers of darks and lights with the craft acrylic paint, adding in the details with pastel pencils. After that I started working with my new set of soft pastel crayons, which I am totally in love with. 😉 These pastels are so soft, they come in such beautiful colors, and they give such a wonderful texture to the portrait.

At that point I wasn’t really sure how I wanted to proceed and how I wanted the portrait to look. I thought I should smoothen it up a little by applying some of my oil paint sticks, but for this portrait it just didn’t work. It’s interesting that a portrait can really take its own course at a certain point and all I need to do is just follow that path. Without interfering. So, no oil paint sticks this time, and I just continued working with the pastels.

It’s all about freeing myself, letting the portrait arise ‘on its own’, and finding the courage to call a portrait finished at the right time (instead of continuing to fiddle with it). What a wonderful and liberating journey this is…

When I was thinking of a name for this portrait, I looked at her and she seemed to be looking back at me. We both seemed to be thinking “Who are you?”.

I have filmed the process and will make a new tutorial video, which will be published on my YouTube channel on August 27th.

Who Are You. Acrylic paint, pastel pencils and soft pastel in my art journal.