Playing on the Beach: A Pastel

Kevin and Nicholas - Playing on the Beach
pastel by Jane McElvany Coonce

Most of my posts are either oil or watercolor.  I thought I would post a pastel today.  Pastel is the same pigments that you find in other paint (oil and watercolor.) It's the binder that is different.
Some people call pastel chalk.  Actually, it's the dry pigment binded together with gum arabic. Pastels are considered paintings since the artist is using color, blending colors and using the same technique of layering colors that oil painters do.  A pastel artist puts the darker colors down first and then adds lighter colors as he builds up.  So in the hair, for example, the dark brown above the ears would be put down , then a darker ochre yellow.  Later on, the artist would work up towards the highlights of the light yellow in the hair, adding this on top of a darker layer. 

This is a painting of two of my sons when they were small.  We were in Lewes, Delaware, and they were playing on the beach.  I did a number of paintings of them from these photos.  This painting hangs over my fireplace in my bedroom.  There are some paintings I just don't part with. As a museum might say, "In the collection of the artist."