 Welcome to Monet Cafe Studio. I'm artist Susan Jenkins and in today's pastel painting tutorial I'll take you through the stages and reveal to you what happens when we combine watercolor with soft pastel. The combination of these two mediums produces a result that is romantic ethereal and full of light. Are you ready to make the magic happen? Here we go. And it really does make a difference. If real quickly you will like this video I think you really will like it. Subscribe to this channel by hitting that subscribe icon and leave me a comment. I love to hear from you. The reference image that is so filled with brilliant light is from artificial intelligence, one that I created using Adobe Firefly. It's a way that you can verbally give prompts to create what you see in your mind as a reference image. If you're a patron of mine on my Patreon page you will have access to this image to use as a painting reference. Even though I'll be sharing my particular supplies for this lesson I like to share that you can use whatever you have. Use whatever simple watercolor set you have. I just use a small set. The surface can be anything that's water-friendly. You could even use watercolor paper and apply clear gesso to give it some texture or grit. As far as the pastels go I use various brands. If you're a patron of mine I give you a full list, my color notes, and a photo of all of my pastels used. Alright let's get started. You don't even need a very large set of watercolors since you can mix the colors. I started with this set that was new to me. It's made by Golden and it's called Core, Q-O-R. And what makes these watercolors unique is that it's made with a different type of binder than most regular watercolors. It makes the color very intense and vibrant. But as I always say, use what you have. But this really is a neat little set and I absolutely love the colors. Let me give you a quick little demonstration of these colors and you can see how they're applying just like jewels of color. I love them so much. Now you could totally use white watercolor paper for this initial watercolor portion and I often do use regular watercolor paper to combine watercolor and soft pastel. This is from a video tutorial I had a few years ago where I took a couple of my already painted watercolor paintings and I applied clear gesso. Make sure it's clear gesso, not regular gesso. It has a little bit of texture in it and when it dries it allows you to apply quite a few layers of soft pastel. And I actually started this painting that way and changed my mind. You'll see why in a minute. So I started applying the watercolor to the white watercolor paper and I felt like it was a little bit too bright in color. I wanted to neutralize it a bit. So I grabbed some pastel matte. Now I've used pastel matte in white before with watercolor. This is a wonderful pastel surface that is water friendly. But I decided to try it on a tan surface. The reason is I wanted my watercolor underpainting to be a little bit neutralized. And this because these colors with the core golden product are so intense and it definitely softened and neutralized things a bit. And the other great thing is that this surface, once I'm finished with the watercolor underpainting will be totally ready for pastel because this surface takes pastel beautifully. You can get so many layers of soft pastel on this surface and it works great with multimedia projects like this. So as you can see, I did not do a sketch at all. I started when I first started with the watercolor paper. I did do a sketch. I thought, you know, we've got an elliptical object, this jar. So let me get my sketch in. And I realized it was feeling too tight. And one of the goals of this underpainting is to have this loose and soft impressionistic beginning very painterly and free. So I decided just to paint and get in my basic shapes very loosely. Now, if you haven't painted or sketched a lot, you might want to go ahead and get a sketch in. But the more you paint, trust me, the more you do this, the better you will get. And I like to describe my method of getting my objects in. I use what I call or what is spatial relationships. I am constantly comparing and contrasting spaces between things, proportions, how one object relates to another. And don't let that intimidate you. Again, the more you sketch and the more you paint, the better you will get at seeing those relationships. Let me know if you'd like me to do a little sketching or drawing tutorial sometime. I'd love to do that. So as you can see, this surface is just taking this watercolor and just making it so soft and gorgeous. And it is totally what I had envisioned for the underpainting. Now, let me describe something else. I'm using for the underpainting is literally what it sounds like. It's a painting under a painting. And it really just serves as a roadmap. It serves as getting your values and your colors down. And it's a great way to start a painting. But what I'm doing as far as my color palette, this is called local color. Local color just means colors that you kind of see in the scene kind of natural to it, as opposed to something like a complimentary underpainting, which is using a color that's a compliment to the main colors in the scene. And I've been doing so many complimentary underpaintings in my latest tutorials that I thought a local underpainting color would be really nice to do as well. And again, the point of this was to look very romantic and soft. And I didn't want that high contrasting color underneath. I wanted to keep it very local and romantic looking and feeling. And as you can see, the colors are melding and almost melting into one another. And I want you to notice though, that while this is loose, and some of you may think, well, that's just a big mess. There is some rhyme and reason to it. I have my values and my colors in areas that are pretty accurate. So again, this works as a great roadmap when I go to start applying soft pastels. And it really just sets that foundation for a loose and painterly beginning. So as I mentioned, there are three L's that I'm wanting to achieve with this light luminosity and looseness. And this is definitely got all three of those going the luminosity is from just the luminous transparency of the watercolor. The light is from at the sum of the light colors that I used. And the looseness is another inherent quality of watercolor water period just loose and flowing. So here is my very romantic and loose beginning in watercolor. And it's time to apply pastels once it dries, of course. This is a set that I used quite a few of the colors from it is the Diane Townsend Landscape A set. There is a landscape B set. I love her pastels. Also, I chose some purples, some blues, magentas. And here's a quick glimpse at some of the pastels that I used once the painting was complete. Again, if you're a patron of mine on my Patreon page, I'm going to make you some color notes so you can see more specifically the colors that I used. Before we start applying soft pastels, let me tell you how to become a patron. If you want all the extra goodies and to support this channel, it's only $5 a month. Again, you get all of the hundreds of videos with full content. And you get to be part of my beautiful Patreon family. I love that. And if for some reason you don't want to become a patron, but you'd like this full lesson, I have a shop feature on my Patreon page. You can just follow me for free on Patreon. And on the computer version, you can click shop and you can access the full version of this tutorial, not the abbreviated one here on Monet Cafe. With all of the extras, all of the commentary, this particular tutorial is about an hour long, and lots of goodies that go along with it. So if you don't want to become a patron and you ever just want to buy one of the tutorials and all of the extra goodies, you can do that from my Patreon page. And now it's time to apply pastel. Again, the surface will just take it right away after the watercolors dry and note the watercolor will dry lighter and a little less vibrant. This pastel painting portion here on the Monet Cafe channel will be sped up substantially. But I want you to sit back, relax and enjoy this painting, watching it come to life. I do want to make mention that even though I cover up quite a bit of the watercolor portion of this, I still felt its influence peeking through. And it also acted as the perfect roadmap and guide for my color and value application. I hope you will stay to the end because I have some final comments to make on this painting and this process. And while I paint, considering that there seems to be so many trials and tribulations in this world, I thought I'd read some hopeful scripture along the music. Don't worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank him for all he's done. Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right and pure, lovely and admirable. Think about these things that are excellent and worthy of praise. We can rejoice when we run into problems and trials. For we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character. Character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us because he gave us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. Then Jesus said, Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you because I am humble and gentle at heart. And you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear. And the burden I give you is light. Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable and keeps no record of being wrong. It does not rejoice about injustice, but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Three things will last forever. Faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love. Now things are really coming together. And I'm beginning to add some of the lighter highlights on the flowers and the flowers that are sprinkling back through this meadow. And I really loved creating this painting. I felt the light was just so invigorating and gave me a sense of happiness and peace. I hope you learned a lot in this lesson about the beauty of combining watercolor with pastel. And even though this portion was sped up, keep in mind I have hundreds of lessons here on the Monet Cafe channel for free, lots of beginner tutorials, and there is lots to learn. Let me know what you thought in the comments. I'd love to hear from you. And as always, God bless and happy painting.