Mon pote le gitan

This gentleman was sitting quietly with his dog in the shade on a very hot day in Lacoste, Provence. He was wearing trainers, but had a fine pair of tooled leather boots at his side, one of which contained a bottle of wine. He kindly gave me permission to take a photograph., and I based this portrait on a cropped version of the photo.
This is the cropped photo, reduced in Photoshop to 16 colours.

I used this as a jigsaw of abstract  shapes to start the process in hard pastels and pencils.

This is the underpainting finished. I paid especial attention to the flow of the pattern in his shirt

The selection of soft pastels I used included flesh tones and golden ochre from Sennelier; blacks and blues from Rembrandt; reds from Sennelier, Schminke, and Roché.

Top half of the dog worked, and face commenced, keeping the top half and its colours away from the rest.

Beginning to fill in the pattern of the shirt with soft pastels, guided by the underpainting. Neck and beard also getting some touches.

The finished piece. I'm sorry I didn't ask his name.

Mon pot' le gitan un jour est parti
Et Dieu seul sait où il ballade sa vie

Mon Pote le Gitan © Niall O'Neill