Hello and welcome to another drawing video here on my YouTube channel. If you are new here, my name is Shay and I'm a full time pet and wildlife portrait artist. In today's video I'm going to be drawing this witty, barbrae macaque using soft pastels and pastel pencils. I thought it would be fun to film the process and take you through a little time lapse of how I created this drawing. Here I have lightly sketched out the linework for the piece just by using a light to hb pencil on 30 by 40 centimeters white pastel matte paper. I actually just traced this linework as drawing it out freehand or using the grid method just takes so much extra time. I prefer to just get stuck right into the drawing with my pastels as soon as possible. Once I have my drawing ready to go, I then open the reference image on Procreate on my iPad and pick out some of the colors to get a general sense of what soft pastels sticks and pastel pencils I need. For the soft pastels sticks I mainly use Unison color and Shnimeke and for the pastel pencils I use many different brands. I find that each brand has a different experience, some are more opaque and some are harder or softer, etc. Here I'm simply collecting various shades of light graze as well as yellows and oranges. I'm just trying to find as many similar variations of colors that I can see in the reference photo. I may not use all of these colors and I will undoubtedly add more to the mix as I go along. I just like to be as organized as possible before starting the piece. Okay so as you can see I've already began with the eyes. I think they are a great place to start with and I always make a huge effort to fill in as much detail as possible. The eyes in a portrait are usually what the observer connects with and notices first. Obviously the larger the size of the paper the easier it's going to be to fill that detail in. This particular portrait isn't the largest size measuring at 30 by 40cm. Some of my large pet commission drawings go all the way up to 95 by 70cm which is a good size for packing in all the detail. As you can see I'm starting to map out the various lines and shapes within the face, specifically the shadow forming the shape of the nose and the upper mouth skin folds. For the skin here I'm using a mixture of light flesh and pink tones as well as purple and blues. Over time I have found the various strengths of the different brands of pastel pencils such as which work better for certain objectives and so on. For example the Carindash pastel pencils are very soft which also makes them very opaque and because of this they are great for adding in the very vibrant details such as highlights in the reflection of the eyes or the final layers of fur. Now I'm going to move on to adding some of the coloured fur around the face and also the light grey area of the body. For this I used my soft pastel sticks not applying too much pressure otherwise that would completely fill in the paper with too much pastel making it impossible to lay the final details on top with the pencils. To blend the soft pastel out I used a soft sponge tools and I will list all my materials that I use in the description. I like to make my drawings look realistic and I think that soft pastels are a perfect medium to do so. I personally find them very easy and satisfying to work with. If you are new to soft pastels or you're looking to improve your skills with the media I have the full real-time process video for this drawing already available now on my Patreon channel. As well as this one in particular I have many other soft pastels tutorials and real-time videos over on Patreon. I really put a lot of effort into making the content on my Patreon as useful as possible so if you are looking to gain more knowledge about soft pastels and how to use them please consider having a look on my Patreon channel. The link for it is in the description for this video. I'm now using various shades of grey pastel pencils to build up the light texture of the fur that we can see here. I want to keep everything looking soft and fluffy so I only use a light pressure and I blend that out with my fingers where needed. This particular portrait is actually one of three world life pieces. I have recently drawn out in between the pet portrait commissions I create for my day-to-day job. I'm also making fine art prints out of these portrait drawings. Please let me know if you think a separate video or about the creation of fine art prints would be useful for you. I absolutely love the reference photo for this drawing and the funny facial expressions as soon as I saw it. I actually purchased this reference photo on a website called wildlifereferencephotos.com which is a great resource for artists looking for wildlife photo references. I think I purchased around five reference photos for only ten dollars which is great it's also really nice to support photographers for their hard work. As I work on the head section I begin by mapping out some of the fine dark hairs that I can see. For the darkest lines I use the criticolor black chalk pencil which produces the deepest blacks. I can then start filling in the fine orange and yellow lines. I just love how vibrant the colors are here. It's really important to check the length and direction of your lines. Make sure you're focusing on those two aspects throughout the portrait to make sure that the fur is accurate. As I previously mentioned and as you can see here I'm using the current dash pastel pencils for the final third details. They are very vibrant and perfect to make in the fur look healthy and shiny. As the drawing comes to an end I can start by drawing out all of the very fine black hairs that I can see all over the face. A great tip is to sharpen your pencil to a point and then sand down two opposite sides so that your pastel tip becomes a very thin edge. This is perfect for making those fine lines. Thank you so much for stopping by and watching this video. I hope you have enjoyed my process of drawing this witty barbry macaque. If you did enjoy this video please like and subscribe and I hope to see you in the next one. If you enjoyed this video here on my YouTube perhaps you will consider subscribing over on my Patreon channel. On Patreon you will find many of my high quality art tutorials and real-time videos for some of my most realistic and impressive artworks. There are videos explaining in detail on how to use soft pastels, oil paints and graphite to name a few. I will also show you my go-to tools and how to use them. All of my content is beginner friendly and is aimed to allow you to create realistic artworks that you're proud of. There are three subscription tiers for you to choose from to see what best suits your artistic needs. Subscriptions are monthly and you can cancel at any time. Once you subscribe to a tier on Patreon you will instantly gain access to all the past lessons I have already published as well as all the exciting future lessons that are to come. Each post comes with a full list of the materials needed and the tutorials often feature a full list of each individual pencil colors so you know exactly what you need to use throughout. Being a professional artist and lucky enough to have commission clients from all over the world, Patreon is the place where I take you through my full creative processes as well as explaining all the techniques, thoughts and any tips that I may have. For a moment free, you will gain access to hundreds of hours of high quality drawing footage so you can see exactly how I achieve realism in my artworks. If you would like to see more information on what is available before subscribing to my Patreon, you may check out the tutorial section on my website at www.shamersart.com. Both the links to my Patreon channel and my website is in the description for this video.