How to paint an arctic wolf in pastels
“Tundra Queen” is a portrait painting of Dharma WindSong of A Wolf Adventure. Beginning with a large sheet of Crescent Moorman suede board, I worked this piece in soft pastels including Rembrandts and a few Unisons.
My Palette included (but might not be limited to) these colors: Burnt umber (background), white (wolf and snow), ultramarine blue (wolf and sky), creams (wolf and snow highlights), greys, cobalt blue (sky), earth greens (background), purple (snow highlights), and a few other local colors as you may see in this picture. I work fairly all over the place, bouncing to and fro, and I usually pick my palette by eye, and save the pastels aside while working on a project, so I can quickly change from one color to another without having to remember “Which one did I use for this???”.
Below is a link to a step by step description of this painting as it progressed, written after the fact so forgive me if I don’t remember everything. I took photos of this painting in various stages along the way, sometimes at night, sometimes during the day, so the lighting will vary from photo to photo. Also, the board is laying at an angle on my drawing board so it is a bit skewed compared to the final piece which was photographed at a proper angle. But aside from that, I hope you will find it helpful to you in your pastel journeys.
To view this instruction page in full, click on the link below -
How to Paint an Arctic Wolf
