# Frenchies in Pastel
**URL:** https://community.thevirtualinstructor.com/t/frenchies-in-pastel/885
**Category:** Share Your Art
**Created:** [June 10, 2020, 11:03pm UTC](https://community.thevirtualinstructor.com/t/frenchies-in-pastel/885 "2020-06-10T23:03:12Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Lori51](https://community.thevirtualinstructor.com/u/Lori51)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2020, 11:03pm UTC](https://community.thevirtualinstructor.com/t/frenchies-in-pastel/885/1 "2020-06-10T23:03:13Z")
I loved working on this picture. A lot of challenges for me.
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### Author:  [@tgp](https://community.thevirtualinstructor.com/u/tgp)
#### Post date: [June 11, 2020, 12:13pm UTC](https://community.thevirtualinstructor.com/t/frenchies-in-pastel/885/2 "2020-06-11T12:13:09Z")
Beautiful!
I especially love how nicely you blurred out the background and the darkness and contrast on the dog on the right.
wow
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### Author:  [@Lori51](https://community.thevirtualinstructor.com/u/Lori51)
#### Post date: [June 11, 2020, 1:27pm UTC](https://community.thevirtualinstructor.com/t/frenchies-in-pastel/885/3 "2020-06-11T13:27:20Z")
Thank you Jason. This means a lot.
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### Author:  [@tomee43](https://community.thevirtualinstructor.com/u/tomee43)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2020, 11:21am UTC](https://community.thevirtualinstructor.com/t/frenchies-in-pastel/885/4 "2020-06-12T11:21:48Z")
Nice job overall but I am really fascinated with the detail here. Was all of this done with soft pastel sticks or was a pencil also used? Love the little hints of color in the pups . Can you speak a little about the process/?
A pleasure to look at and a learning opportunity for me .
thanks for posting. tom
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### Author:  [@Lori51](https://community.thevirtualinstructor.com/u/Lori51)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2020, 1:32pm UTC](https://community.thevirtualinstructor.com/t/frenchies-in-pastel/885/5 "2020-06-12T13:32:46Z")
Thank you Tom,
I will love to share what I did, but keep in mind I am learning too, so if someone sees I am doing something wrong, or they have a better way, then we can both learn.
I used mostly pencils for the dogs. I have tried underpainting with both sticks and pans, but to me if the area of color is not great, I just use the pencils.
I started with the dogs heads, first the lighter one and then onto the darker one. Once that was done, I went back and completed the body of the light one and then over to the dark one. I pick the colors I want to use for each dog and just start laying color, making sure my lines go in direction of the fur. If I have a big patch of light, I will put the light in first and work the dark around. But generally, I just work as I go. The pastels are pretty forgiving, so I can go in and change areas if I stray off course. Love how you can work both light to dark and dark to light!
Since this background had a lot of white and light yellow, I was worried about the dust from the dogs, so I did it last. Background is mostly done with Rembrandt soft pastels, because I love them. I have to put about 3 layers on and work into paper with my fingers, but they give me such a smooth look and I like that. I did use several pencils for the grass along with the edges of the sticks.
So that’s pretty much what I do. I joined with Matt 4 years ago and since then, I have drawn so many pictures, I am running out of storage, lol.
Oh sharpening my pencils, bought all of the “favorite” pencil sharpeners that people recommended. I ended up using the knife and sandpaper for bigger areas. For real fine areas, my daughter bought me a package of 100 sharpeners, just the little plastic throw aways. So I can get 1 or 2 good sharpenings out of most of them before I toss. Since the container is around $9.00 it’s a great deal. Saves me from headaches, lol.
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### Author:  [@jodygoldman](https://community.thevirtualinstructor.com/u/jodygoldman)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2020, 2:32pm UTC](https://community.thevirtualinstructor.com/t/frenchies-in-pastel/885/6 "2020-06-12T14:32:05Z")
I used to breed and show frenchies, and this is a nice representative of the breed. Even the way the brindle is sitting is so typical. Love it.
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### Author:  [@tomee43](https://community.thevirtualinstructor.com/u/tomee43)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2020, 2:42pm UTC](https://community.thevirtualinstructor.com/t/frenchies-in-pastel/885/7 "2020-06-12T14:42:52Z")
Thanks for the fast reply. Funny you mention the sharpeners, I had just asked Matt what he used to sharpen his prismcolor pencils on the current Live bee project. He uses the little plastic ones