 Welcome to Monet Cafe. I'm artist Susan Jenkins and I'm so happy you've joined us here for a happy family of artists all learning and growing together. Oh and if you haven't already subscribed please do so. I would love that. Now let's get started painting these moody thunderstorm clouds with the Mount Vision thunderstorm gray set. Oh I loved creating this painting. Let's get started and let's have fun. Hello artist and welcome to Monet Cafe. I know I'm glad to be back at Monet Cafe. Some of you have followed our recent travels to get my mother-in-law who is in need of our care and I thank you for all of your prayers. We definitely felt them. So before I left I was going to do a video on a set of pastels that I was so excited about. It is the Mount Vision thunderstorm gray set. I can't believe I haven't used these pastels before actually because I toured the Mount Vision manufacturing facility that is conveniently located in my area in Tampa Florida and I went and met the owner and manufacturer Carl Kelly. What a nice guy. And I did a video tutorial of how pastels are made. I'll try to put a little link up here for you to see that video if you haven't. It's fascinating and I think just amazing as pastel artists to know kind of what goes into it. So without further ado let's get started with the Mount Vision thunderstorm gray set. For reference material I considered going through the hundreds or thousands probably of sky photographs and cloud photographs that I've taken and I'm so fortunate I live where there's a field in my backyard with beautiful sunrises and sunsets and I'm taking pictures of the sky all the time. But I happen to remember wait a minute my mother takes amazing photography of sky. She just uses her iPhone and I made this book for her a few years ago. Her name is June Moss. The Skies of Moss Meadows. That's where they live their property. And so I'm gonna go through some of the pages of this book with you and we're gonna pick out some skies. So I'm just gonna go through a few of these and show you. Their property is just beautiful. They live on this lake called Peacock Lake. It's just so so beautiful there. I like this one here. You know the set with Mount Vision it's called Thunderstorm Gray and you know a lot of the photographs are actually a lot more of the warmer tones with a sunset. So I think I'm gonna go more with something like this where I'm using those grays and neutrals. The set has a lot of neutrals but again I think I want to go something with a little bit more of a thunder type of a color palette. I'll flip through a few more pages of the book here. Oh and I also added Bible verses to a lot of the images. Your loving kindness O Lord extends to the heavens. Indeed it does. And by the way if you're a patron of mine from my Patreon page patreon.com slash Susan Jenkins I will be providing you guys with some of these reference photos. So you can choose patrons to use the one that I'm using for this painting tutorial or another one that I'll provide for you. So that's a perk of being a patron. And by the way if you're curious how I made this book it's by company called Mix Book and they do a great job. Now let's talk a little bit about this reference image. Once again I chose a Thunderstorm type of a scene because the set has a lot of these colors that would work well with this type of scene. Also I did some photo enhancement just to get creative. I'll be talking a little bit more about that as I paint too. But let's first talk about this Mount Vision set. I wanted to show you a close-up of this set and I really love how many of these colors are very neutral. We've got some that are a little bit brighter. This is probably the brightest in color intensity here. I also love that it has a decent amount of purples. We know that clouds especially thunderstorm clouds are going to have more purples and blues and more grays and neutral tones. I also love the addition of slightly green colors here. Believe it or not there are some green tones often in clouds but look at these nice neutrals. So I like the Mount Vision pastel in general because it's a large pastel. I mean you really get a lot of for your money. Well let me pull out, let's see, pull out this pretty kind of mauve almost between purple and rose color here. I thought I'd give you a little demo here of how I use a cigar cutter to cut my pastels. I like to cut my pastels because I feel like the the long sizes is a little bit too much to get some of the strokes that I want. So a round cigar cutter is perfect for cutting round pastels. Now I like to take the labels off first. It's kind of a pet peeve of mine. I like it when they come with no labels but it's just one of those laborious tasks you have to do. So here I will demonstrate taking the labels off and cutting the pastels. Now I'm cutting them into thirds. I decided actually after this I better start with the light pastels first. What can you think would be a reason for that? Well you may have already thought of it. Actually if you work with the light pastels first you don't get all the dark colors on your fingers that will transfer over to the light pastels when you grab them. So it is a best practice to start with light pastels working your way to the dark ones. Now let me talk back again. It takes a little while. You see I've sped it up about why I cut the pastels and why I can cut these into thirds. I like pastels cut usually it's in half but I like them cut because I use them on their sides like the broad side. When they're so long you have too much especially if you're working on a smaller painting. Now if I was working on a lot of larger pieces I would probably keep the pastels just as they are. Say I'm working on a lot of 16 by 20's or larger it would be better to keep the pastels larger but I've been working more in standard sizes such as 8 by 10, 11 by 14, even 5 by 7's and smaller. Sometimes I love the tiny paintings too. So in these cases it's really more practical. Now here's the neat thing about Mount Vision Pastels. You get a lot of pastel for your buck. Okay it's a large pastel already and it's long enough to where I can cut them into thirds and it's really a great perfect size for me. What's also nice about this is if you want some of these in your workshop set and then you might have a travel set you have enough multiples to be able to do that. Actually three in this case. Typically I cut my pastels in half and here they are. Aren't they lovely? Now I want to give you another quick tip. I know a lot of companies like Terry Ludwig Pastels they give you a color chart where you can fill in the chart with all of the individual colors in case you want to reorder. I actually usually don't use those a lot but here's a quick tip. Take a photo of your pastels and then you can use the photo to actually take the pastel. You'll have the number right there and you can mark it. You can also convert the photo to black and white. Not only is this a great way to see the values. Can you find the darkest value in this now? But you can use the black and white version to mark on the actual print out to see the colors. Alright enough talking. It's time to paint. I decided on this one photo manipulation that I did. Even though it was darker I liked it being moody and I loved the negative shapes in the trees and I had a strategy for how I was going to do the focal point. So let's get started and I'm going to give a lot of instruction as I paint. For the painting surface I decided to use a board. It's made by Ampersand. It's an Ampersand pastel board and I decided to use a gray one. It comes in I think beige and maybe kind of like a greenish color but I thought this gray one was good because it is kind of a little bit of a darker scene already. By the way the board's kind of heavy so you could see I just took a piece of foam core. I cut it to raise the board up a little bit to give it something to sit on because sometimes my hinge tape system that you'll see me do in just a minute may not be strong enough to hold the board since it's a little heavier than say a sheet of UART paper. So you can see here how I kind of gave it a little support with a piece of foam core at the bottom. To block in the sketch I used a white pastel pencil and really all I'm doing here is trying to get the shapes and like the energy. I don't want to get too detailed but at the same time some of the cloud placements and negative shapes were important. Now let's talk about this underpainting. What on earth am I using now? This is a set of somewhat gouache and somewhat acrylic. It's called acrylic gouache. I got it on sale. It's made by Turner I think two or three years ago and I've used it some on its own but never as an underpainting with pastels. By the way if you want some excellent information on gouache painting this is a free resource you can get from LenaRivo.com. I love her artwork. Her gouache paintings are fantastic so you go to her website and you can print this book out for free. Really awesome. I like gouache painting too. Now for the gouache painting I'm using some stiff bristle brushes. It's really almost kind of like an old brush that doesn't have a lot of consistency and I'm using it purposely to get some of those tree wispy branches on the edges there. I was trying to find some of my darkest darks and I decided I wanted a little bit of a blue and a green and so I didn't purposely mix them together because I like to kind of mix them on the actual surface. It gives a little bit of variety so now can you see how this by the way I'm gonna have some real time in this painting but it would be so long if I didn't speed up some portions of it. So I want to talk real quick about the brush I'm using. See how it's giving those little splayed out edges to the tree outer perimeter there. You can use a fan brush as well but I tend to like the inconsistency of just kind of an old raggedy brush like this and it really did have a nice effect. I'm definitely gonna do this again and I really just so you know ahead of time I loved using the Acryl gouache. You could use gouache, you could use acrylic, you can do because this ampersand pastel board is water-friendly you can use just about any medium wet medium for an under painting. You can use pastels for an under painting and just blend them in. Now I was trying to get a little bit of a lighter color and I got it too light at first you'll see but for in the reference image if you look at my photo there that I've manipulated there's a band that where I'm gonna start painting right now it almost looks like it should be water and I decided I wanted to do the painting that way. I'm gonna show you the original reference image right now so you can see it wasn't. That was actually that little dark band behind the trees was actually the underneath part of the clouds. Here's the original photo and you can see that really dark band of clouds at the bottom there. That was actually the bottom of the clouds and then there was more sky underneath it but I decided I think but I decided to make it more like it was a some water and make the dark band like some distant mountains or trees in the background you'll see as I paint how I manipulated it that way so that's the neat thing we can do as artists we can break out our artistic license and change things up a bit. So now in my underpainting you can see how I had a bank of trees in the background that I'm working on right now kind of distant trees or mountains water between it another bank right underneath the tree of land and then water again beneath that and that'll start making more sense as you watch me paint but again you can do these changes to images if you think it would make for a better final painting just of course keep in mind that that has to agree with the laws of nature and perspective so I thought it made a stronger painting and I was very happy with it. So I did a little more negative painting in the sky and it's time to get started. I wanted to mention here that I'm purposely trying to remember where I want my focal point even though this is just the underpainting I feel the the strongest point of this reference image and painting is going to be the light in these clouds right here there's just a nice contrast of light in here and also the sky holds peeking through the negative spaces so I feel like it's it's pulling the eye up and around and so I'm trying to use the brush to create that energy but also remember that this is the focal point area that's something that I've been really trying to get better at myself and I've also identified that that's what makes a really great painting is when it has something that just grabs you but then also other things in the painting just pull your eye around so that you can play so it's a constant play of detail and contrast versus neutrality and subtlety in other areas so those are things that I feel I'm getting stronger at I'm not the best but I'm getting there and you will too so I'm gonna keep working on this now I'm really enjoying this acrylic wash on the surface and it is still very sanded so whoops it's wet too all right more work before I get started with the thunderstorm gray set I am going to establish a darker dark and this is the Terry Ludwig egg plant color it's a really nice dark now I know my underpainting already looks pretty dark but this color is going to add some richness and a little bit darker value to the underpainting all right so here we go with pastel application I'm only slightly speeding this part up a bit and you can see how I'm using this darker pastel I'm I'm always analyzing my reference photo which I totally recommend to do and analyzing the values now I did have to move that little board my support board to be able to get some of the darks that are down below the darkest darks are going to be at the base of that tree kind of radiating up a little bit into the tree not quite as much on those upper branches that's why I didn't put quite as much there's some darks kind of in the little clumpy areas beneath the branches that are reaching into the sky and then of course on that little bank that I have like I said I decided to make this almost like a little marshy bank with water beneath it and I've definitely seen living in Florida seen marshes like this you quite often will have water land water like I'm going to produce here so this part of the painting I think is important to establish the values and I'm also keeping in mind my focal point like I said it's something I'm learning to do is to remember it establish it as your concept first and then keep it in mind as you work so you don't lose it you know it can happen you can get busy painting you totally forget oh yeah that was supposed to be lighter here or darker here so that's what I'm working on now I know I have that little bank of the grasses there so I'm using that dark to pull down to make like reflections in that little teeny sliver of water running horizontally across the bottom of the painting that's really going to add some interest if I just put that bank all the way down I don't think it would have been quite as interesting as it ended up in the final painting with some of those reflections reflections from the grasses and reflections from the sky and also you saw I added just a little teeny hint of dark in some of those spaces in the sky it's my blue sky part so to remember where the darks are that's a piece of pipe foam insulation a great little blending tool you can get it at any hardware store some of you may have seen I've been recently just using a paper towel for some blending now why am I blending this for one the darks that I applied with the Terry Ludwig pastel they still looked a little chunky a little spacing in between it and I wanted to I often use a blending tool to move the value around where I want it so I'm kind of painting with it believe it or not almost like a little paintbrush and so I'm blending things to where I think it needs a little bit more dark or a little bit softer softer edges so a little blending see how it already looks more moody the tree than it did before and so it's a neat little handy way to soften things up and now back to some real time and I'm actually now using one of the colors from the Mount Vision thunderstorm gray set and I actually chose one that was a little darker these are some of the blues I think that's the darkest blue in the set now you can see as comparison here the darkest blue in the Mount Vision set isn't nearly as dark as the Terry Ludwig eggplant color and because the scene was so moody with the dark tree and bank I definitely needed a darker dark now you could use this Mount Vision set to do a whole painting and I should try that too so I use a few other colors but I or other brands other than Mount Vision and other colors that aren't in the set but not many I hold them up typically to show you as I paint and also my patrons you will get a color chart I I've still saved all the pastels that I used so I will make you your little color chart that you know I include in your post you can see it you get the reference photo and when you're done with your work you can submit it to the homework album oh my goodness I'm telling you what my patrons are doing such a fantastic job the last video I uploaded of the beach scene or one of the last videos unbelievable work I mean just so beautiful and I love the uniqueness it's it's like everybody we're not the same which is awesome and everybody has their own little unique spin or way of painting and I just love that so now you can see I'm gradually working in some of the bigger shapes and getting in a little bit and that you see where I put that lighter blue right there just to the right of where I'm working there I know that that's probably going to be lighter and it's gradually going to get darker once again keeping that focal point right in that area right up above it is where the lightest highlights on the clouds will be and so by keeping the values lighter there amongst or amidst the dark it's really going to cause the eye to go there now notice how I'm bringing that purple from the Mount Vision set just a nice subtle color a little darker in value and gradually working to a darker value over towards the edges so the painting is going to radiate a kind of almost from the center not quite center lightest value out to darkest as it expands you know in a circular way so that's that's kind of my strategy with that little part of water that I'm working on there and here I'm bringing some of the sky colors down into the water once again working with vertical strokes later you'll see me add horizontal strokes which makes the water it flattens it out and it adds a little bit of a reflection so it's really a good idea to do vertical strokes first with water reflecting what's above and now you see how I'm using kind of that same blue in that little bank of water in the foreground because I know the light highlights of the clouds are going to be right there so again a vertical strokes and I do use my finger you'll notice as I paint I am using my finger occasionally just to knock it off not to over blend but sometimes just to kind of soften things up a bit and now I'm going to start working on more of the sky I'm trying to get in the biggest values in the biggest shapes first and I know some people have they say they're cloud challenged or sky challenged and I always like to say if you can zone out that you're painting clouds they seem soft and billowy and try to just see the shapes for what they are and the value for what it is kind of forgetting that you're painting clouds that might sound strange but it really does help oh and what was that big chunky pastel I just had in my hand well here it is it's the Diane Townsend greens and even though my manipulated reference image had mostly darks and grays a little bit of purples and blues I still wanted to bring some cooler greens in there or you could say warmer blues and introduce a little bit more color into the color palette rather than just blues and purples now you probably saw in the mountain vision set there are a lot of nice warm colors and there were a couple of light really pale kind of neutral greens but they were too light for this scene so that's why I decided to grab some other greens this is another one that's a terry Ludwig I grabbed I was testing a lot of times you see I'm testing colors and I want to make sure I get the value right oh by the way stay tuned later I'm gonna show you how value changes due to its environment okay I literally take a pastel that on my palette where I'm working when I look down at it it looks so dark and then when I pulled it up to my painting which had a lot of dark in it already it looked so light or I shouldn't say so light but a lot lighter so we need to make our value choices based on what's in our painting and not necessarily how it looks on our palette alright here I'm having to show you I'm adding some eucalyptus essential oil to my Monet cafe bracelet you see those little stones that look like pastels kind of their lava rocks and if you put a little drop of essential oil whatever your favorite oil is oh it just adds to the painting experience while your hand is moving you're smelling your essential oil so just showing off my bracelet these are available I have a nice friend of mine who makes these and sells them in her Etsy shop so the link is always in the description section of this video okay back to painting now there's the image on my iPad that's actually the original that I'm kind of analyzing and there's the manipulated one by the way people ask all the time how is your iPad stuck up on your board there it's literally just an iPad holder that has a flap so I put the flap behind it and just hang it on my that's just foam core board and it works great now I'm already at about 23 minutes into this video and because I don't want it to be so long I am going to speed up the rest of the video with some music but you will still learn a lot by watching even at this speed also I have a little section coming up pretty soon where I really show you how fascinating it is holding up the pastel that looks very dark on my palette that I mentioned before and you pull it up to the painting and it's light so that's why it's always important to look at the pastel in relation to your painting and make your choices that way also at the end of the video is when I use some harder pastels to add some linear strokes which I really I liked the effect of that so that's going to be in real time at the end as well so stay tuned hope you learn a lot comment leave me feedback I love to hear from you guys and subscribe of course if you haven't but I'll be back soon thought I'd show you guys something that's quite interesting about value I know I've explained this in a few videos but value is relative and so is color based on what's around it so let's take a look at this blue for example here it looks pretty much like one of the darkest colors in here and let's grab it it's pretty dark right look how dark that is now let's move it up here see it looks pretty dark here we go here we go here we go and now all of a sudden can you see how much lighter it looks in comparison to this painting because the painting is primarily dark and it gets even lighter when we put it here so it's really important to base oh look at the shadow to base the value and the color on what's around it not just what you see in the but look how much darker that got dark value this is like so fascinating and lighter value isn't that crazy I have a video on optical illusions like an art and how we see color and and value so it's it's quite fascinating so be sure when you grab something don't just go oh this is dark I need a dark color and then go and start going make sure you compare it next to all the other things in your painting and that's why I often say go ahead and get the majority of the big shapes in and get your values established because then you can more correctly choose the right values and colors all right I hope that makes sense it's pretty crazy and here is where I'm working a little bit more on that area talked about the focal point with the what do they call that in clouds a silver lining it's kind of how the light just shines it's like backlighting behind the clouds and it lets that little sliver of light peek over the top edge and I was trying kind of hard to reshape this because I didn't want the shape of the cloud to be too similar to the shape of the tree and it kind of was so I played around with that a little bit and I apologize that my hair gets in the way a little bit here I've got to learn to put my ponytail up or do something and sometimes you just get to painting and you're not thinking about filming but now you see that little silver lining and I do kind of tone it down a lot I thought it was a little too light in value so I think I do tone it down a little bit but I am really keeping a light touch here too I I'm even though when it's going fast like this sometimes it looks like I'm applying more pressure than I am but I was purposely trying to keep a lighter touch but now at the end now you can see how I have those two bodies of water the one that is in the foreground right underneath that that marshy area of land then the one behind it with that bank of trees in the distant background and you see how I was able to change what was in the reference image to something different alright this painting is getting close to done but I want to go ahead and fast forward a bit to show you the end where I used harder new pastels to achieve some linear strokes I've already done some of it here you might can subtly see it but I really liked in the reference image that I manipulated how it added or it had some linear marks and I love to do this technique often with landscape paintings where I just lightly use a harder pastel and these Prismacolor new pastels are great for these final linear touches like this just giving some directional strokes it's going to give more energy to the painting overall and also to something I meant to mention before notice how the painting could feel very weighted this composition because we've got that big heavy dark tree to the right bottom and if I didn't have something of mass and of interest somewhat in the top left it it might feel off balance but I think because of the big cloud and some of those linear strokes and some interest in the top left it really did balance out the composition I think so anyway alright so I hope you guys enjoyed this if you try it patrons be sure to share your results in the homework album and to everyone in the Monet cafe family I am just so happy we have art together it's such a beautiful thing in this crazy world right so here's the final and until next time happy painting