This is a drawing of Maria, who I drew about a year ago in a pink/black theme. To me she's really beautiful and has a certain uniqueness.
It's based on a photo I took of her at our housewarming in April 09.

I think I have gone through each emotion while drawing this one. It started out great, I used a huge amount of time to draw it up and make it perfect. Then I began the colouring of the eyes, skin and the red hair. Along the making of her skin it didn't go too well, the skin somehow got a dirty look. I was really frustrated with this but turned it into stubbornness instead and continued with the layers on the skin, till I ended up with a result I felt happier about.
I originally wanted an even more dark red for the hair but the pastels got to the point where they didn't allow more layers. One of the biggest problem to me is when you have done a certain amount of layers in pastel it suddenly begin to take off the layers when adding more, it can be really hard to work with and mess up an even surface. Other times when you have added a lot of layers it won't allow you to add more and white hard areas appear. I wonder if there is a better paper to avoid problems like that.

I very much enjoyed the hair, it's super fun to do these different hair styles, as it doesn't need the usual glossy highlights and softness.
I feel happy about the eyes and the green colours.

I compared this one to the one I did last year of her: [link] and felt I have become a bit better, at least this one has more depth, which is one of the things I struggle the most with when working with pastels. It annoyed me a lot, even to the point where I just wanted to give it up.
I am however determent to become great with pastels, as I truly love to work with them.

Made with soft pastels and charcoal.
(30x40cm |12x16inches)

Prints and tube available at: [link]

You can see the making of Sweet-Heart here, in 8 steps: [link]