In this drawing, I will be using Unison colour pastels, Carbothello pastel pencils and Faber castell pastel pencils to draw a Lemur on Clairefontaine Pastelmat paper.

I wanted to create a dynamic background, similar to the reference photo. I took inspiration from the bokeh effect already seen on the righthand side of the reference photo and continued it onto the left (reference attached on Patreon). I loved the colour palette of blue’s, grey’s and dark green’s of the bokeh, I used a mixture of pastel sticks and pastel pencils to create it. I also used both the pastel sponge tools as well as my finger to blend it together to achieve the blurry out of focus effect.

I believe that one main thought to take away from this piece is that the lighting in an artwork is so important. A dynamic light source can really help the subject to jump out of the paper when drawn correctly. The reference had great shadows and highlights which really forces you to keep the contrast high and creates an impactful visual. Sometimes, lighting can be more important than details, it also makes for a more visually interesting portrait overall.

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