SUMMER 2016 PASTEL CLASS – Project: Working the Steps Week 2

I wanted to show one more way to start a painting, and it is by no means the last way, just one of many, but as a teacher I want to show you as many things as I can so you won’t be afraid to try new things, this time I did a charcoal sketch and use alcohol to set it into my sanded board.

I made my own sanded board from a piece of mat board and using Golden’s Ground for Pastel to create the sanded surface. I showed this step in class the previous week only this time I put the ground on the white gessoed surface without any color for this demo.

 

I just used my black chalk on a white sanded board.

To put my sketch on and some of the darkest areas of my design, I used my black chalk or you can use charcoal, to get my design on my board. When I was happy with the design, I put some alcohol in a small container and with a brush, started washing the black into the board. Do not get too much alcohol on your brush or you will have problems, you just want enough to work the chalk in, not run down your paper.

In areas I wanted to have lighter tones, I just used what was on my brush that I picked up in the dark areas. Keep a paper towel handy so you can wipe off excess charcoal and/or alcohol off your brush as you work.

Once I had roughed in my values with the black and alcohol, I let it dry before I started adding color. Just a note here: sometimes this roughed in sketch looks really good and you might not want to cover it with color which is perfectly okay. You can either do another or save the one you like best as a black and white or take a picture before you add color so you have a record of what you did for future reference.

I used alcohol to get this value underpainting.

You can also do this in color with the alcohol or water. You can use watercolor or oil for the under painting, I even read an article where the artist did her value study first, then put a clear acrylic varnish over it to set it in, though the ground for pastel is transparent so you could also use that if you wanted to. So many options, you get to find the one you like best.

After the sketch was dry I started adding color onto my board. You values are there already; you just need to flesh them out with your colors.

 

Same board with the value underpainting but with color added.
 I am still working on this.

Many of you worked at home and did the finished painting at home and just added the final touches in class, so next time you will need to bring in something you want to work on and I do encourage that you work the steps from sketch to value study to final project or you can try this one again, taking what you learned and seeing if you can improve on your first. I will be there to help you along the way whatever you decide to do.

I do hope that showing you how to do a value study has helped show you how values work in a painting and I hope that you will continue to use the technique to increase your understanding of values because it will make your paintings much more dynamic in the long run.

Keep painting and I will see you in class.