On a Painting Binge

I've been on somewhat of a painting binge here lately and just finished the portrait on the left yesterday.  It's from the Paint My Photo site and is from a reference photo by Carrie Layne Mashon.

This is Conte, soft pastel, and pastel pencils on some suede paper from a scrapbook supply store.  I've been wanting to try the suede matboard that some artists use but it's not available locally that I can find and it's pretty pricey to order since there's a 10 sheet minimum.  The paper I bought is acid and lignon-free and I thought it would do well for experimenting.  The size is about 8 x 10 inches.

I really, really like the suede for use with pastel and the painting went very quickly with little to no dust!  I used a brown color paper for this painting and the light-colored, harder pastels didn't cover that well and that's really my only complaint with the paper.  I have one Sennelier soft stick in white that works well so I can see that if I intend to use the suede much, I'll have to invest in some softer pastels!

Oh, just thought of the new suede paper from ColourFix!  It's still not available where I shop but I'm really hoping it's as wonderful to paint on as this was!   Just think, I can get new paper and new pastels!  I'd better hurry up and finish the commissions that are waiting as I see a shopping binge coming to match my painting binge!  lol