Pastel Garden Fantasy Week 3

I have sprayed my painting at least twice with workable fixative to this point. I have everything

under painted so now I'm going to start the finishing process. What that means is that I am going to come in and make things darker for the shadows more intense in color more defined I want this to pop.

You must have the photos of the pagoda and the stream from the Botanic Gardens so that you can see where you are going I use these reference photos just as a matter of course I would not know where to go if I didn't have them where I could see them, they don't help you if they're at home or in your bag. You need to see where the shadows are; you need to see the changes in color; you need to see the changes in shapes. This is why we have reference photos.

Most of the time at this point in my painting I try to blend with the chalks and not my fingers or a

stump because this leaves chalk marks that gives pastels their unique look. However, if I need to I will break out my stump or use my finger to blend I also have what's called color shaper and that works really well getting into smaller areas for blending.

When I am working in shadow areas I want to make sure that I am using the darkest colors. I have I have an indigo color I also have some very dark browns and greens and I will often use the Indigo color with these other dark colors to create darker versions of the other colors. This is so that I avoid using black unless I have absolutely no choice. Black will dull your colors and make shadows look rather harsh so try to use the dark versions of the color and add dark blue instead of black.

I do occasionally use a purple in my dark colors but I find that in pastel purples tend to be more of a reddish purple and I don't like the results I get. Its probably just the colors I have but I don't like the way they mix with my other colors so I prefer to use my dark indigo blue.

I will probably finish my painting in the next class so try to get your painting as far along as you can if you have questions let me know but keep painting and I will see you in class.

Spring 2015 Pastel Week 3

Pastel Garden Fantasy week 2

I wanted to be sure that I had my underpainting well established in my pastel before spraying. I added more colors into the side areas that suggests trees. In the red tree I added some orange as highlight to suggest the tops of branches and I added the suggestion of another green tree in front of it. I made sure I had all of my pine tree and the background behind it established and then I started in with some lighter colors to start the highlighting process. Once I had all of that done then I sprayed my painting.

When the spray had dried I started working on the pagoda. I used warm shades of gray, some lavender and a soft ochre color. The pagoda and the rock it sits on are very warm in tone so I wanted to be sure that the colors I used were very warm yet on the grey side.

In the stream I used some of my cooler (blue) greens to under paint the water. I will go back and add other blues and greens later, this was just the under painting.

I also found color in my pastels that was similar to the color of my paper and in some areas along the outside edges I blended this into those colors that were there and smeared them together so they fade out into the margins better.

I also under painted the pine tree's trunk and branches with a darker warm grey it wasn't a dark grey more like a medium dark grey so that I can come back in with darker colors to suggest bark and texture on the tree. I have not sprayed my painting again I still need to do some work before I will spray my painting again and this is where I left off.

Try to get your paintings to this point in class so we can continue. Be sure to have your reference photos where you can see them and refer to them often. Keep painting and I will see you in class.

Spring 2015 Pastel Class Week 1

Pastel: Garden Fantasy Week 1

I am working on a turquoise paper it's more like construction paper it has a very undefined grain to it which I like and it is slightly bigger then my sketch because I want to have room around it so that I can fade things out into nothingness.

The first thing I did was to transfer my drawing onto my paper, I did that by lightly going over the lines of my drawing on the back side of the print out I had then I taped it to my paper aligning it to where I wanted it. I have more blank space at the bottom than I have at the top and then I taped it down with blue masking tape and went over the lines of the drawing with the end of a brush to transfer the drawing. After tracing the design on the paper I did have to go over those lines with a pastel pencil to reinforce my lines so I could see what I had on my paper.

Starting in the back and looking at my reference photos, I took a light yellow because I want a nice bright area in the back and I formed an a sunlit area as I moved away from the sunlit area I added touches of orange and red negative painted around most of the areas of the trees and the tree branches and rocks so that my colors would stay dark and clean against the other colors.

Once I had the background in, I started filling in the rest of my painting. I used to dark green underpainting for my pine trees painting around the pagoda in front, I added some deep red in the background - I don't know what it will be but I like the color -  I also use some lighter greens for some of the trees and then for some of the low ground cover I use blue greens. Look at the reference photo and you will see that many of the ground cover plants have a bluish tint to them. For my rocks I used light and dark grays I also have an indigo color that I use for blending and for shadows.

I painted the water with purple and blue and I made sure that as I made strokes on my paper when I was in a pool area to make them look flat my strokes were very horizontal to the top and bottom of the paper, and when I was painting in the fall area, I curved my strokes in the direction the water is falling

This is just under painting and I did not get all of it finished in class I will do that next time, I want to have all of it under painted first and then I will spray for my next layers. Do as much as you can and get your painting to this point. One of the things I haven't mentioned is that I have space all around the edges of my painting so that I have what is called a vignette where I will fade the colors or to blend into the color of the paper. Keep painting and I will see you in class.