Masquerade mask portrait drawing using oil pastels

I used to paint a lot of people wearing masquerade masks, but it’s been a while. The other night I was looking through reference photos, and saw what I thought was a woman wearing a mask in a thumbnail. Turned out I was wrong, it was just a shadow, but I went ahead and gave her a mask anyway.

These Paul Rueben pastels turned out to be exactly what I was hoping for. Soft and creamy. Very easy to layer. It’s one of my favorite brands of oil pastels so far.

Since I smudged up the background accidentally, I decided to color it gray. I think the title of this portrait is going to be something like “At Twilight She Becomes a Superhero” or something like that.

I mixed gray in with the black pastel to make the background slightly lighter in tone than her shirt.

Then, I used natural turp (it smells like lemons, and doesn’t give me a migraine) to blend the gray and black pastels together with a brush. Turns out this is much faster than trying to blend with a tortillon. Also, I see now why some artists call their oil pastel drawings “paintings” instead of drawings. Even though it’s mostly a drawing, if brushes are involved it can technically be called a painting, yeah?

More photos are coming soon. I didn’t quite have time to finish it before the Buddhist retreat. I’ll try to get to it, and a million other tasks next week when I’m back at work full-time. Have a lovely weekend, y’all.

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My affordably priced artwork can be found here on my site, and in my eBay store. I’m accepting orders for custom paintings, and drawings. Plus, lots of new items are available in my Etsy shop, and more are being added daily – coffee mugs, postcards, notebooks, iPhone cases, tote bags, throw pillows and blankets.

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