Summer 2017 Pastel Class

Pastel Project: Summer Fun Week 2

This week I now that I have the lifeguard tower in, I want to tweak the tower and background and start working on some of the detail. I probably have one more session on this before I call it done but it is getting close.

Starting in the background, I thought that my chalk hadn't covered as well as I would have liked so I took the same colors and went over the areas again but this time I didn't blend them together. I liked the texture I got from the rough surface. I also went into the other colors more to give it an aurora feel to it. Don't be afraid to experiment, not everything needs to be blended or perfect.

The tower was done with several similar colors of different values. The dark areas were a dark teal color and an indigo blue the lighter areas a lighter teal and lighter blue. If you need to add white to lighten, that is okay. I blended these colors and went over them again to get the darkness or lightness I wanted. The windows are not white they are 2 shades of gray. the lighter one for the side windows and the darker one for the back window. Remember they are in shade. The sign on the back of the tower was just a different blue and a few marks made with gray and a red to make it look like words, you literally do not need to spell out anything on that sign, just make marks.

The flag is really simple and again, you are not going to be making a flag with 50 stars but the suggestion of the flag blowing in the wind. Just know that the top and bottom stripes are red, the stripe at the bottom of the blue field is white, just suggest the flag.

The shadow under the tower is very important because it sets the tower down in the sand. Look at the shadow in the original photo of the tower, see how there are areas of light going between parts of the tower and show on the sand? Also, notice that the shadow doesn't have nice straight lines. That is because the sand is uneven and shadows follow the surface they fall on. I used my indigo (dark gray/blue) and my dark lavender blue to base in the shadow then blended the colors together. Because this is a shadow it needs to be cool which is why I used the blues, there is also the sand color that was originally there that also blended into the shadow. Once blended, I took the indigo again and made some darker marks to indicate uneven sand and I lighter softer tan for the highlights on the sand.

Finally I started working on the sand itself. First I put in the orange float which is a combination of red for the shadow, orange for the sunnier part and yellow for the highlight and lightly blended.

Using that light tan color, I made a series of flat "u" shapes to indicate the tire tracks in the sand as well as a touch of the indigo for shadows. Look at the photo and study it to see how the light and dark make up the uneven sand and the tracks.

As I said, I will probably finish this in our next class but do not feel rushed to finish yours in the next class. Take the time you need and I will be around to help. Keep painting and I will see you in class.