A Rest for the Model

I began working with pastels as an undergraduate. Around this time, I was also a student of the brazilian master Lydio Bandeira de Mello, in his private atelier where he teaches live model drawing. During one of the model's breaks, I took a picture of one of his other students, depicted here.

She was also an undergraduate at the time, studying sculpture. I'm happy she was wearing something that let me explore her back muscles, which are quite representative of the strength you have to develop when modeling in clay, among other things.

This was my first fully developed pastel portrait, back in 2010. It's made on a Canson Mi-teintes paper. It's been exhibited several times, though never sold.