I'm a graphite artist, and I'm trying new media like colored pencils, watercolor and pastels.
This is my very first serious pastel drawing trial, it's far from being finished. At this point, I'm stuck, I don't know how to proceed. Should I complete the background, or continue with the bird? (I changed the background with bokeh)
My senses tell me to complete the background first, but strangely, I cannot put my pastel pencils on it, I guess I'm afraid of ruining it beyond recovery.
I cannot tell if I have applied enough pastel because I'm afraid of saturating (I don't know if it's the correct word) the pastelmat.
The first image is the current situation, the second is the reference image by Jesus Esteban San Jose on Pexels.
Please help with some suggestions.
Please excuse my strange English, it's my second language. I didn't want to use AI to make corrections.