Meet Chester, my own horse. He’s a sweet tempered Arab/TB/Welsh gelding, Mango Merrymaker when he’s being posh. Chester was obliging enough to give me this rather noble pose when I was photographing him, looking over the fence at his friends in the field. The following pictures will give you an idea of how I work when I paint a pastel portrait, from start to finish.

First, I sketch out the painting very carefully, using pastel pencils in cream and white for the highlights, and burnt sienna for the principal blocks of shadow.  I mark the black details in the eye and muzzle very lightly with a soft graphite pencil. In the second picture I’ve rapidly worked over the painting with pastel sticks in three or four basic underlying colours, and placed the darkest darks with black pastel pencil. This establishes the form and proportions of the portrait, so it’s vital that this stage is accurate.

Most of the work from now on is in pastel pencils, apart from the odd area where I’ll use a stick to distribute some solid colour. Having given the surface a light spray with fixative, I work in small sections from the ears downwards. Pastels smudge very easily, so for fine work this is essential. I cover the rest of the painting with paper so I can rest my hand without fear of dirtying or greasing the remaining surface. In the early stages, I put together a palette of about 12 colours, including browns, blues, violets, reds and yellows. I always put down white and black first, then work through the remaining colours from darkest to lightest. I work through the palette twice and then move the paper down and start the next part. As I work, I frequently add touches to the previous sections.

The first layer defines, the second refines. The ‘foundation’ layer is fairly lightly applied, but still picks up pigment from the initial working-over with the sticks as they are quite soft and powdery. I apply the top layer more firmly and this is what gives the velvety finish. For blending, I tease the surface with a pale pastel, using just sufficient pressure to collect the foundation pigment and distribute it into the adjoining colour. Sharp detail is achieved by applying rapid, firm strokes. Pastel mixes beautifully on the paper, and by varying the pressure applied, the artist can control the mixture between the foundation layer and the fresh one. There is a limit to how much this can be done before it results in mud. The only way is to get to know the materials intimately with lots of practice. If disaster strikes, I use blu-tak to lift the offending layer off the surface. I also use it at the end, to pick up all the bits of pastel dust off the clean surface of the background. Erasers are too clumsy and destructive! Because pastel creates so much dust, which gets everywhere, it’s usually necessary to re-establish the blacks and whites at the end, to crisp them up. It can be handy to go back to the pastel sticks for this as they tend to have stronger pigment. I continue in this way from top to bottom, and left to right, taking breaks from the painting every couple of hours or so, so I can look at it with fresh eyes and spot anything that’s not quite right. This painting, which measures 19x15”, took around a week to complete.

You can see that Chester has a deep, long scar on the nearside of his neck. I don’t know how he got it, but it’s part of what’s essentially ‘him’ (how many horses are perfect?) so I kept it in the portrait. The series of images below show in close-up what was happening to Chester’s muzzle while I painted it. You can see the pigment smoothing out from the first grittiness into that lovely velvet finish, until you can almost feel the warmth of his breath - what a satisfying moment that is for an artist! Adding the whiskers at the very end has to be done with quick, confident strokes: getting them wrong would mean a lot of repair work. The final, larger, picture of his muzzle is a scan, which shows the detail more clearly than the photos of the painting.

Click here to see Chester’s portrait full screen

MATERIALS - I like to use a smooth surface for my pastels, which I admit is unconventional. Papers sold for pastel work are invariably textured, and I find that even the finest ones interfere with the detail I’m trying to portray. For several years, I’ve been using Daler mountboard which is readily available in a huge range of wonderful colours. In this case, I used Pale Grey which has fibres embedded into it. It’s a very unforgiving support to use because its lack of ‘tooth’ means it will only take a small amount of punishment before it burnishes into an unreceptive glaze, but I’ve come to an agreement with it over the years. I have recently been looking into a range of surfaces designed for pastel painting, as I’m always open to improving my technique and finding better ways of doing things.  I’ve made a page about the results of my tests, which you can read by clicking here. My pastel pencil collection keeps growing, and contains products by Derwent, Schwann and Faber Castell. It’s handy to use different brands as, even within one range they have different consistency - some are better for texture, some for overlaying highlights, and some for mixing on the paper.

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