This is the day the LORD has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it. – Psalm 118:24
“Oliver’s First Communion”, 9×12″, pastel on paper by Annie Dash Studios
Oliver is our kind, gentle-hearted, and cheerful son who is receiving his First Holy Communion later this month. Always joyful and eager to help, Oliver has an inner beauty that radiates outwardly.
In celebration of Oliver receiving this holy and blessed sacrament, we took formal photographic portraits together, and I created his pastel portrait from this photo from our session:
To create the pastel portrait, I did the initial portrait drawing, then used PanPastels to produce a painterly look for the underpainting of the face, hair, background, shirt. Next, I added layers of Rembrandt pastel sticks, and finished with many layers of pastel pencils for all the detail work. I added additional soft greys, whites and blues to the background for a soft, painterly look. I chose not to use the deep black of the background from the reference photo and softened it quite a bit, due to the harshness of that look with pastels on a child’s portrait.
Here is a collage with a few highlights from the stages and many layers of this work:
I truly enjoyed creating this beautiful portrait, and look forward to displaying it at Oliver’s First Communion luncheon. I believe that pastel portraits have the ability to capture the essence of not only how people look, but who they are.
As they say, time is fleeting, but art endures. I hope that Oliver will look back fondly on his First Communion portrait in remembrance of this holy and special time in his life.
I hope that you enjoy this work as well — if so, please be sure to leave a comment below.
If you’re interested in booking your own First Communion pastel portrait or First Communion photo session, please get in touch!
Annie Dash Studios is a portrait artist, painter, and photographer serving New Albany, Indiana and beyond with heirloom fine art pastel, acrylic, and watercolor paintings, and fine portrait photography.