From the Artist: Decided to try and break away from realistic colours with this self portrait, so used a blue pastel to sketch out the main features freehand, then used as vibrant of colours that I had. I've drawn this on velour paper which doesn't let you blend so in that respect I had no choice but to leave every mark I made. Although this is very sketchy and not my usual style it does resemble me and it was fun.

From the Painting Guide: If you natural inclination is to blend, then using something that doesn't let you is a great way of forcing yourself to work in a different style. Glad to hear you had fun with the challenge, and I think it shows in the loose but strong mark-making. You've not fiddled and fiddled with every single bit to get a result. For instance the green and blue of your shirt -- you've put pastel down and left it; put something on top and left it.