Justine's portrait in pastel by Kim Blair



Justine
(14"x11" wax pastel on gessoed w.c. paper)


Justine caught my eye this past January.

My "artist eye" is always scanning my surroundings when shopping, looking for a possible portrait model. I have learned (as I mentioned in a previous post) that inspiration must be acted upon as soon as possible. So, when I turned around to check out a sweater hanging on a mannequin and my eye went past the sweater and spotted Justine I knew instantly that she would be fun to paint.

Her long blue hair is what initially caught my attention, then her eyes came into focus!

Justine Orkusz is a professional makeup artist and manager at MAC cosmetics. She has worked for this brand for five years, but has been doing makeup for ten years total.

The images she posts on http://www.instragram.com/makeupbyjustinerose showcase her creative talent with makeup. It's intriguing to see how transformative makeup can be when applied by a professional!


It's no surprise that Justine loves freelancing and doing theatrical makeup.








Evelyn's portrait in pastel by Kim Blair





Evelyn
(14"x11" wax pastel on gessoed w.c. paper)

One afternoon, last fall, I was talking to my friend Francine during a function we attended at the Highland's Golf Club and mentioned that I would like to paint her daughter's portrait. Not too long after we spoke I received a lovely selfie reference photo of Evelyn which I filed away until last month. 

It was a delight to paint Evelyn!
:0)


One of the reasons I like working with pastel is the textural tones you can achieve when bits of the paper/underpainting peek through the work. In Evelyn's portrait you can see the warm terracotta of the underpainting peeking through the background and skin adding another tonal dimension to the work.






*If you received this blog post via email subscription the video will not be visible in your email. Please go directly to my art blog by clicking on the following link for kimblairartist.blogspot.com in order to view the short 2 minute video of the creation of this portrait.