Daler Murano paper

I'm continuing to compare pastel papers. For this portrait I've used Daler Murano paper and the dog is from a photo I found on the internet and his name is apparently 'Buddy'. At first, compared to the Fisher 400 paper, I found this paper a bit flimsy and insubstantial, and nearly gave up. But I persevered, and found that I actually really like it. I used a mixture of hard and soft pastels and pastel pencils. I recently bought about 40 new colours - mostly greys and browns, from the Derwent range of pastel pencils, and they certainly came in very handy for this portrait.

Practice work

I got this pic of a beautiful dog off the internet. I did it with pastels on Fisher 400 paper. I'm just practicing at the moment with pastels and different papers. I like Fisher 400 - it's very forgiving and seems to allow an unlimited number of layers to be added. I'm not sure if this is a good thing - I think one should still try to complete the work in a small number of layers as otherwise the colours can get a bit muddy. I'm not sure if this pastel work is detailed enough. I've seen other work on the internet where every hair seems to have been drawn and the fur doesnt look coarse like it does here. It' a mystery I've yet to solve!