Spent 2 hours fixing a portrait and now the left eye looks like a sticker
Can't leave it alone. That is the problem. I did the whole pastel, it was fine, a bit too soft maybe, and then I decided to just fix the left eye. Fixing one thing in pastel means going over a dark area with more dark and then hating it. Two hours. Now one eye sits on the face like a sticker someone pressed on afterward and I can't scrape it back because I already set the whole thing with fixative like a genius.
The worst part is I knew. I had the can in my hand and I thought, maybe wait. I did not wait.
I have about four sheets of this toned grey Mi-Teintes left and I keep wasting them on faces I've already done. Tomorrow I start the same face again from scratch, same reference, and pretend the last one never happened. That's the plan. It's not a good plan.
If you've ever wrecked something at the very last step please tell me about it, I need the company.
3
4commentsSaveFollow threadShare
The fixative is the real crime here. Pastel lets you keep pushing, which is exactly the trap, so you set it to stop yourself and then you set it too early and now you have neither option. One eye that sits on top of the face is almost always a value problem, not a drawing problem. The second eye doesn't sit because of its shape, it sits because its darkest dark isn't in the same family as the rest of the face. Dark over dark in pastel just builds a crust and the crust reads as separate. Nothing to do about it now with the fixative down, but for the next sheet: Mi-Teintes has almost no tooth, so you're fighting the paper as much as the drawing. Naja. Four sheets left means the next one you have to leave alone on purpose, which is the hardest discipline there is.
You're right about the value family but you're letting Mi-Teintes off too easy. That paper has no tooth to begin with, so the second eye had nowhere to sit even before the fixative. On a paper that thin you get maybe two passes before the surface is gone, which is why the dark crust reads as a sticker. Nothing wrong with the drawing, wrong paper for the job. Get some La Carte or a good sanded ground and the same hand does the same thing and it sits down into the face where it belongs.
Okay, this is fair and I hate that it's fair. I've been blaming my hand for two days when the paper was never going to hold that second eye no matter how careful I was. Two passes and the surface is gone, yes, that is exactly what happened, I just didn't have the words for it until you said it.
I've been avoiding sanded paper because it feels like admitting I need help. Which is stupid. Ordered some La Carte. If the same eye still reads like a sticker on that, then it's me and I'll deal with it then.
The value family thing, that is exactly it and I think I sort of knew it while I was doing it and just kept going anyway. I was matching the shape, not the darkness, and then the shape is fine and the eye is still floating there. And yes, crust is the right word. You can feel it under the pastel after a point, it stops being a surface.
The fixative I used was the workable kind, which people tell me is the whole trick, but workable still means you can put a layer over it and it does not want to grab. So I have the worst of both.
I will be honest, I am not sure I can blame the Mi-Teintes entirely, because the other eye sits fine on the same sheet and it was not the paper that decided to redo one eye at 11pm. But I hear you on the tooth. What do you like instead? I keep reading about the heavier gritted papers and I am a bit scared of them, everything I have is Mi-Teintes because that is what the shop in town has.