I discovered Joanne Barby’s work with PanPastel when she posted an image of one of her portraits on our Facebook page. We had such a great reaction to that image that I asked Joanne to share some more images of her work so that we could post them here.

Joanne is based in Australia and works in a variety of media including colored pencil, charcoal, ink, acrylics, watercolor and of course plenty of PanPastel! Her recent work focuses mainly on animal and people portraits. The pieces shown here are approx. 80% PanPastel.

She uses Epson Archival Matt Paper for her drawings (like the up-close portrait of the owl), she also uses Art Spectrum paper for example the Aboriginal boy is completed on this. She works mostly in A3 size (11.7 x 16.5″) or larger.

In describing her technique Joanne says: “For the hair and eyes of my subjects I usually use a base of watercolor paint, this allows me to give a bit of depth and it allows the PanPastel and pencil to go over it easily.  I always use PanPastel for the skin, feathers and most backgrounds.  I then use Prismacolor pencils or pastel pencils for any of the finer details around the eyes and lips etc, then I blend it all together with the Sofft Tools.”

She builds up layers of color with either a fixative spray or matt spray, then uses Sofft Tools to paint details over the top, Joanne also uses a Sofft Shaper (silicone tipped) to get harder lines through the PanPastel for details like wrinkles and feathers.

To see more of Joanne’s work visit the following sites:
Website: http://www.joannebarby.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Jo.Barby
Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/people/JoanneBarby