Finished PanPastel girl

All finished! I haven't been giving my faces pupils lately and I'm not sure why. There's a possibility I might add them later, but I doubt it.
My friend Tal asked me if I "fixed" the pastels. I didn't. I never do. The only time I expect this page to be pretty is right NOW. If I paint on the back page and get it on this page, I don't care. If the pastels smudge all over the back of the cover, I don't care. That probably doesn't make sense to people, huh? I wish I had a good reason for that. As long as a painting makes me happy while I'm working on it and immediately after I'm finished, that's really all I ask of it. In a week I don't care about it anymore, I've moved on.

Pan Pastel Portrait

You like my alliteration? I'm totally amused by it!!

Here is it in my amazing Fabriano journal. Pencil first:

With color:

Usually, I like my pencil drawings a LOT better before I add color, but I'm actually not sure with this one. The color isn't horrible. It's not wonderful, but it's not horrible. I tend to post things half-finished on here, not sure why that is, but I'm going to post her finished (if I finish her). I'm thinking brown hair, blue or purple eyes...maybe green? And a dark blue background with yellow fearlessly flicked on it to add some silly dots (stars?). We'll see.

Avoidance...

I know that to become a better artist, I have to practice. Knowing this, however, doesn't really motivate me. I want to pick my pencil up and draw what's in my head. Doesn't happen that way. I mean, for some people it totally does. Not me. Today I finally spent a few hours just practicing drawing. Most of the day, actually. These first:

I want my journals to be like comic books (I know, I know, I'm supposed to say "graphic novels"), so this is some manga practice.

Then this was made with PanPastels, and watching one of Pam Carriker's videos:
Thank god it looks better in person. I have SO MUCH trouble getting good pictures of my art. I don't understand it - I have a great camera, I get awesome pictures of my kid, I've photographed a couple of weddings, did my brother's engagement photos - but it stinks with my art. Maybe it's trying to tell me not to quit my day job? Oh, yeah...I don't have one.