Medium & Materials
The materials behind the portraites
The materials I work with are an important part of how I create my portraits. I spend a great deal of time getting to know different papers, colours and tools, finding what gives me the right feel and the result I’m looking for.
I work with coloured pencils and pastels as two separate techniques. I never combine the two in the same artwork, but instead choose the medium according to the feeling and expression I want to create.
Coloured Pencils
Coloured pencils are a technique that suits me particularly well when I want to work with fine details and build up a portrait layer by layer.
Faber-Castell Polychromos
Polychromos are one of my absolute favourites. They are oil-based artist pencils with a firm core, making them particularly well suited to precise details, fine lines and building up layers.
I especially enjoy using them when creating individual strands of fur, whiskers and tiny details around an animal’s face, while also being able to build soft transitions and depth through many delicate layers.
Caran d’Ache Luminance
Luminance pencils have a softer, creamier feel than Polychromos and are wonderful when I want to add more colour and achieve fuller coverage.
They are particularly useful when I want to build up rich colours, soft transitions and depth within the fur. The different qualities of my coloured pencils allow me to move between precision and softer colour-building, depending on what the subject needs.
Pastels
Pastels allow me to work in a very different way from coloured pencils. While coloured pencils often involve fine layers and small details, pastels offer a softer and more immediate way of working.
I particularly love the way pastels can create soft fur, rich colours and lively expressions, while still allowing me to work with a great deal of detail.
Faber-Castell Pitt Pastel Pencils
Pitt Pastel Pencils give me the precision I enjoy about working with pencils, combined with the softer quality of pastels.
They work particularly well for details such as fur, eyes, noses and whiskers, allowing me to work carefully even when the subject is highly detailed.
Caran d’Ache Pastel Pencils
Caran d’Ache pastel pencils are another tool I use when I want to work with fine details while retaining the soft quality of pastels.
They allow me to work with colour and detail in a way that is particularly well suited to realistic animal portraits.
Rembrandt Soft Pastels
I mainly use Rembrandt Soft Pastels for building up larger areas, softer shapes and colour. They work beautifully alongside pastel pencils within the same pastel technique and help me create both coverage and soft transitions.
Why So Many Different Materials?
I don’t believe that one material is perfect for everything.
Different subjects need different things, and sometimes it comes down to small differences in colour, texture, coverage or the way a material responds to the paper.
That’s why I enjoy experimenting and really getting to know the materials I use. I can be rather nerdy when it comes to things like this – but it’s also a big part of the fun.
For me, choosing materials isn’t ultimately about which products are the “best”, but about which ones help me create the expression I’m looking for in each individual artwork.
The right materials are part of the process – but it is always the animal and their personality that remain at the heart of my work.
