Nothing is as strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as true strength. – St. Francis De Sales
“Kathleen”, 9.5×12″, pastel on Pastelmat by Annie Dash Studios
I’m delighted to share “Kathleen”, a pastel portrait of my dear friend who lives a radiant life of beauty, purpose, and faith. My goal with this piece was to capture Kathleen’s inner and outer radiance and the beauty she brings to this world.
A devoted wife, mother, and fellow artist, Kathleen inspires me with her kindness, generosity, intellect, gentleness, nurturing, and creative pursuits. She and I have been good friends for over 16 years, when we worked together as librarians at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Library. We both have master’s degrees in Library Science but have since left that field to raise our families and pursue creative business ventures. You can find her online at Old World Farmhouse, where she shares how to create timeless beauty on a budget.
Here is the photograph I recently took of Kathleen during her family’s photography session, which I used as the reference for this piece:
I used PanPastels to produce a painterly look for the underpainting of the face, hair, background, shirt, then added layers of Rembrandt pastel sticks, and pastel pencils for all the detail work.
Here is a collage of the stages and many layers of this work:
I truly enjoyed the process, am happy with the end result, and am so grateful for the opportunity to create this piece! A million thanks to Kathleen for the wonderful photo session and graciously allowing me to use her image as a reference for this work.
I hope that you enjoy this work as well — if so, please be sure to leave a comment below.
If you’re intersted in booking your own commissioned fine art portrait, please get in touch!
Annie Dash Studios is a portrait artist and painter serving New Albany, Indiana and beyond with commissioned and original realistic fine art pastel, watercolor, and acrylic paintings.