Giraffe pastel-Concetta Flore

I really love soft pastels and they seem to me an ideal media for atmospheric situations. I was pondering on a photo I took in Namibia, of this solitary giraffe in a vast, flat stretch of land with no trees. An eerie image for an animal that is architectural in its proportions and strict geometry, massive and graceful. So I thought of rendering the scene in a slightly dramatic light, and proceeded to do so on sanded paper (the kind made for pastels ). I just had to get it out of my system; so here it is, not from nature direct, but from my second trip through my pictures.
On second thoughts, maybe I overdid it...