 Hello my friends and welcome to Monet Cafe for another fun art lesson. I am so enjoying bringing these lessons to you and today I'm excited because I got my studio all cleaned up and ready to start something new. It's just always fun when I have everything all tidy and got all my pastels put away so now I've got this nice reference photo to work with that I got from the site I've talked about a little bit called Paint My Photo. And I'm going to give a short little tutorial on how to actually use this site and then we'll get to painting. Alright so here's a quick little tutorial on how to use the Paint My Photo website. It is such a handy tool for finding reference material or just getting inspired. I use it often just to get inspiration. And it's so so helpful because you can find reference images of things that aren't necessarily native to where you are. For example if I wanted to paint a polar bear I can't really afford to fly to the north polar wherever they are and take a picture. Now I'm not saying there's a lot of polar bears on here but you get the idea. So first thing you're going to do is to make yourself a profile. You need to become a user and agree to the rules and restrictions that are on here. I've already made mine that's why it shows up here. And just so you know some of the user guides or guidelines right here you can read. Some basic ones are you can't use someone else's photograph as your own photograph. So you can't take it and post it on Facebook and say look at my beautiful picture of the mountains. So that's a big no-no. You can't use someone else's artwork that they have already shared that they've done from someone else's photo to use that as a reference image to paint from. But for the most part it's just a great place to peruse around and find some awesome photos. And I'm going to give you a quick little idea of how I use it. I'm going to go to if you just basically want to look at images you can click here and look at all kinds of images. Let me just do that right here. Just we'll go here. One disadvantage I've found and I don't think it's just my computer because I've noticed it on multiple computers is that it's a little slow in going from page to page. So you can see here that this is just all of the images and I guess someone has uploaded some beautiful pictures of this type of a bluebird. You know we've got all kinds of things beavers, ducks. So this is going to be a plethora of maybe they uploaded by or maybe it's listed as to how new this item is. But then you can actually search for different things. I just recently searched for bumblebee because I love bumblebees on flowers and fields and I kind of wanted to get an idea of a bumblebee. And as you can see it's taking a little while to load. That's a beautiful one. Here's a perfect example. I like this. This is really nice. I probably wouldn't use this whole thing specifically but I may use it to add to another painting. So I'm going to right now click on the little icon that looks like a camera and my screen is not full screen so you can't see it. But I have all of my already added photo albums here and I happen to know my flower photo album is right here. You can see the tail end of it and it has already 36 flowers added. So I'm just going to add that to my flower album that I have already created. I'll show you where those are in a minute. This one's kind of pretty too. I'll do this one here so you can see it better. So again I've already pre-created these types of categories and I'm going to go to my flower category and I'm going to add it. But for example say you saw something you wanted to add and you didn't already have a category. You can just go ahead and make a category right here and create it and it will add it to that. So that's kind of the basic idea of how to search for things and add things. Now if I wanted to see what I have already added this is my user profile here and I can click on that. And again it will take a little while for it to load, it's loading, it's loading. And then when I get to my profile I am able to go to my photo album right here and click right here and I can see all of my different photo albums and the things I've added. Again I use this, actually every time I get on it I realize I need to use it more because it's such a valuable resource for images. But I also take a lot of my own photography, I don't upload it to paint my photo for other people to paint. I should, that might sound selfish of me but it's just that I'm too busy. But anyway again, so this is where you can find all of your little albums and for example the Flowers album I know is on page three here. So if I went to that album now then I could take a look at this particular album, the whole thing. If I wanted to look at my whole album of flowers I can click on it and then it will pull up all of my photos that I've saved with flowers. You can see there's some quite lovely photography in here and it's very nice of these people, not professional photographers necessarily but some maybe that are kind enough to share their photos. Now the neat thing about paint my photo and the very fun thing for the photographers is that if you choose to paint one of these and you don't, I don't necessarily use the photo exactly, I'll use it more for reference for just the type of flower but if you choose to paint the photo from the photo and it's pretty close to the photo, you know recognizable, it's very nice if you go back and add it to that photo so that the person who took the photograph can see what you did. That's the fun of the photographer who uploads the photo. So anyway, you get a quick little idea of how to use this. You also can look at these larger and you can also, how many per page and you can also take for example, you can view the images in what's called Lightbox, it just makes them a lot larger so if you're using your computer screen to work from when you're painting, this is a nice way to do it because it's just so much bigger. That's a really black bumble bee, I've never seen that before but it's a nice way to see it larger and with more detail. So anyway, that's a quick little lesson on Paint My Photo and again, I hope you enjoy that. It's a neat little resource. Okay, so back to painting. Okay, so now it's time to get started with the fun part. I'm using this reference photo from Paint My Photo and I'm going to be painting today on a surface that I believe I spoke about a little bit in one of my previous videos where I went over different types of pastels and different types of surfaces. And by the way, I know it might be looking like my channel is exclusively a pastel channel. I've done so many pastel painting videos and tutorials. However, I still like to keep my channel open to all other artists because I feel like a lot of the same principles apply. For example, I was just watching an oil painting video just today and was learning so much from that artist and the technique she was using because a lot of artistic things just are across the board with different mediums. So anyway, so this is still for all artists but I do happen to love pastels. So this surface I was speaking about is called Ampersand, I tore the package, but this is the package it came in, Ampersand Pastel Board. And the advantage about this is it is on a board, okay? It's a hard board and it's sturdy and it's sometimes when you paint on pastel papers, they're not as sturdy and you have to mount them yourself to protect them and keep them from getting bent. But so this is a board already. It's really nice. And I also like it's got a sanded surface, but it's really fine so that you don't get a lot of chunkiness in your painting. It's pretty smooth. And I've used this before and I always forget how much I like it, but I'm going to use this today for this reference photo. It's a horizontal format. So we're going to get started and now I'm going to pick out some pastels and get going. Now I wanted to share another little tip on a way you can decide on what mood or what pastels you're going to pick out for your painting. There's a neat little feature that I use often if you're using an iPad or an iPhone or any other type of piece of equipment that allows you to edit your photo. I simply go to the edit section when I'm in the photo and then you can do it multiple ways. But this is kind of a quick little way to do it where you have the little option to choose different filters and there's apps that do this too, but this is the actual built-in one on the iPad or the iPhone. Now take a look at this here. This is the normal one. Then you can quickly flip through some of these. These are very good to see the value. If you're curious or you're hesitant about what value is this, often if you take the color away you can quickly see the lights and darks and it's a very helpful tool. Now they do have some different settings. That's a very dark one. They have one that fades all of the hue and the intensity of the color. It's just faded, taking away the saturation a little bit. Then they have one that's kind of punched up in color and then they have one that is more cooled down in color. You can flip through these and get an idea, but what it does for me is if I go back from this one back to the original, do you see how green that is? Sometimes when you're beginning an art you have a tendency to paint exactly what's there and that is actually a very good way to start, especially when painting value. You definitely want to keep that correct, but when it comes to color you have a lot more flexibility. So this is where it gives you the options to kind of explore a little bit and think, hmm, what do I want to do with this? I personally don't want to do this as green as it appears. I love the values in this scene, but I'm thinking, hmm, what do I want to do? This is just a kind of a little self-observation you make in determining what the mood is you're going to set. So I'm pondering on that. I'm thinking I might want to go with a lot of purples and magentas in this and maybe make it a little bit more of an evening scene. So that's what I'm playing around with now, but I thought that would be a helpful tip for you to use this tool in order to determine the color palette for your painting. All right, time for me to make some decisions. Okay, here are the pastels that I've chosen to work with. And again, I wanted to go with a little bit more color. So I have added into the palette some more of the purples and the pinks. I decided this photo was just way too green and I do want to give it a summer feel. In summer right now, as I'm creating this painting, and I want it to be a nice summer feel, but not so heavy with the greens, maybe some cooler, lighter greens as well. Now here's another little trick I do other than the editing feature I just showed. I also sometimes will just take and decrease the saturation, which means to take away the color so it's not saturated with color. It's black and white. And often I'll start a painting from this place instead of having the color. This way I can see the values very quickly. I can see the darkest darks, of course, in the trees and the base of the trees and in areas here and then in the foreground, always things are darker down by the roots of the flowers. So that very quickly allows me to see the value. And of course, the sky is the lightest part in this, along with some of the flowers. So what I'm going to do, I just did some research and found out that this ampersand pastel board can take water. It can be used for other mediums, too. But for pastel work, if you want to do an underpainting, you can and apply either water or alcohol. And as you've seen in some of my videos, I love working from an underpainting, whether it's a solid color or just the base values of colors to get started. It really helps you keep that loose impressionistic style. So I've never done this before. I always seem to be experimenting with you guys. But I thought I might try again. You may have seen in one of my videos, I use some of these wax pastels. It's the neocolor wax pastels, and I use them in another painting because I thought they might work well for an underpainting and they did. And the reason I'm choosing these now is because I don't think with this dark ampersand board that water color is going to be very vibrant unless I applied it very thick. So that's why I'm going to try to use these wax pastels. So I'm going to get started with an underpainting working from a black and white photo. And then after I get that done, we'll start applying these absolutely beautiful pastels. And this is a variety, by the way, of Terry Ludwig's Rembrandt's. I got a little bit of everything here. You can see my other video on types of pastels. If you want more information. So I'm so excited. Let's go. Well, that was very interesting. I don't know if anybody could sense my surprise and hesitation with my brush when I started wetting the wax pastels. When I used the wax pastels on, I believe it was UART paper when I did this underpainting technique last time. They flowed very much like a watercolor almost. And on this they behaved more waxy as their name implies. And it must have to do with the surface of this amper-sand board. But as I got to working with it, I started to like it. It has these unexpected little places that it goes. And that's kind of what I like to achieve in my art is to have things flowy and impressionistic. Now it may appear right now that the sky I created overly pink or purpley pink in there, some in the background too. But I actually did that on purpose. I a lot of times I'll apply an underpainting that's going to create an interest when I apply my targeted color on top of it. So the sky is going to have some blues and purples in it. But I thought that that pretty pink color in the background would be a nice underpainting for it. So anyway, I'm liking this very interesting, impressionistic underpainting and I'm going to see where this leads. Again, I'm glad you guys are here experimenting with me. It's lots of fun. Now I have the underpainting dry and I do like the dreamy quality. It's just a nice way to start. And as I always say, you work big to small, big shapes and less detail to more detail. So it's kind of a neat neat place to start here and the drips and runs just kind of give it that impressionistic feeling. So I'm going to start the painting now with the pastels. And again, I've got to get the sky a little bit lighter. I typically work from the sky down. Not that everybody has to do it that way, but I just sort of sort of like that. So let me get started on this. I think I'm going to kind of keep a pinkish, maybe bluish sky and kind of make it fun. Again, I want it to be summery. So let me just work a little bit here. Actually, before I get too much of the background trees in here, I think I'm going to go ahead and establish the the dark darkest darks right now. And this is actually a dark green. It looks like black, but I actually don't use black in my paintings. Because they it's a very dead color. And you can again, it's all about value. You can get a value of a color that appears black, but it's just has more life to it with it being just a dark shade of particular colors. Like I said, this is a dark green. I often use a dark purple. There's a Terry Ludwig makes a color called egg plant. That is the darkest dark that I usually use and it's beautiful. Now, I wanted to point out, there is one disadvantage to this ampersand pastel board is occasionally I've worked with it and there'll be a line in it like something's rubbed against it. Maybe it was my fault. It might not have been from the company that way. But the line will show up when you paint. But you can you can do things to camouflage that and make it not so obvious. And I just thought I'd make people aware of that. OK, so I'm blocking in some of these dark, darks and you and I'm being fairly light to the touch with this. Again, just trying to get my values in first before I get too carried away with anything else. Now, always down at the basis of trees because trees are vertical, they're usually going to be darker. This is almost here. It's in my reference photo. It's a it's two levels of trees right in here, which I'd kind of like to to emulate that. I've got a level here and then there's a level back here. And then there's actually a third level in the back back. And I'll make those even though they're they're kind of dark in value back there, I will make those even lighter than these to make to increase that illusion that things are far away. Now, this is a tree I had. You may have noticed when I was sketching it in, I had drawn the tree, which is in the reference photo that was almost in the middle here and I didn't like that in the middle. So I started kind of moving it over and this is more of a tree tree. A lot of times trees are like groups of trees and more like big bushes. But this actually has a little bit of a shape of a tree to it. So I'll try to keep that. And it's got some dark, darks and I'm just putting in a few of these. I'll probably make this color less dark in this tree. But once again, just getting in some shapes here. We've got some dark, darks down in the foreground here, but they're not as dark as those trees in the back. Oh, that's not quite dark enough. I think I'll go a little darker than that. Yeah, maybe even a little darker than that. Yes, I got a nice color here that should work well. Keeping it really loose and I don't want to press so hard that I cover up all those neat colors underneath it. Had a little interruption there because I had an art student actually and a lot of other life things that got in the way. And I'm sure that's just like a lot of you guys. I'm really liking this particular type of turquoise blue to push these trees back. Often I'll put down a darker color in the back, even though the values in the back are going to be lighter. I'll still put down a darker and then lighten it. That's the beauty about pastels. You can put down the dark and then put light over top and it just gives more depth and that's just variety of color in the back there or to your painting. So I'm not going to be real purposeful yet with with where I'm putting these holes in the trees and all of that. I'm just getting the general big shapes in and establishing the values. As always, you want to not get too nitpicky before you get the whole thing done or get it all kind of laid down quickly. So let me I have a tendency to want to start working on that, but I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. OK, I'm noticing in my photograph over on this side of the field. Again, right now I'm looking at value more than color. The lightest value, the lightest value in the whole thing, of course, is the sky and I'm even going to lighten that up more. Then the next lightest value is probably these white flowers that are all throughout. But other than that, it's going to be this this field back here and it kind of rolls around a little bit. So right in here and up in there is where it has the lighter value of the field. But these areas here are darker. We've got a lot of flowers growing up in here. That's too light. So again, I'm not really that concerned about color right now. I'm trying to get the right value. I kind of like a cool green in here where these flowers are growing up. But I've got to lay down something to put the green on top of. If I just start putting green down right now, it's going to be boring. So let's get in some other yummy colors in here because that's again, pastels is about layering. This right there is probably a little too bold for back there. So I'm going to be real soft with this. These trees have some shadows under it. So I'm going to probably add a little bit more purples instead of this kind of magenta color. But I just like that color. So pretty. And maybe even a little of this magenta up in the trees. I'll get some greens going on in there too. But anyway, I obviously am a color freak. And I love just the flexibility and the creativity you can have with color once you learn the rules, especially of values. So all right, I'm going to paint a little bit and have some fun. Join me. OK, so this is the point where I step back a little bit and just take a break from it. I have had a good time painting this so far. This has been kind of a neat one. And I really do like the ampersand board. I have noticed that while I've been painting that I am still able to get layers down and a lot of pastel surfaces you are limited in how many layers. So this is a very good thing that even with the underpainting that I did and even with laying down a few different layers after that, I'm still getting some good grit to the to the board. I'm losing a little bit back here because it kind of overworked this. But that's OK because this should be loose and impressionistic anyway. I'm liking this primrose type of color I had here. This is not the color palette that was in the original reference photo. But I changed it kind of according to my mood. And I'm liking this these cool blue. They look kind of like Queen Anne's lace flowers. They actually were something different in the reference photo. But the primrose, I'm thinking I want to harmonize that a little bit with this. I love doing the typical background trees in the turquoise. But I'm seeing if you see this little purplish bluish color back here, I'm thinking I might get more harmony in the painting, even though I love the teals in it. If I make the background trees a little bit more of the primrosey blue. So that's something I'm thinking of doing. Maybe I'll do it right now. I just said I was going to walk away. Didn't I just say that? Oh, my goodness, it's just so hard. OK, so again, when you do background trees, it's good to go ahead and put down a little darker value first. Because if I just added that primrose on top of that, it wouldn't look right. So a little darker down at the base of this. OK, so there I'm kind of getting that in. And now I can add a little bit more of now. I've got a couple of value choices here for my blues. This one is too teal. OK, it's OK. It's not as the one that I used was more like this was more of the turquoise. This is close. Let's see this one because this one here is a little too light. Got a couple of choices here. That's almost the same. It's kind of close. This is a little bit more of a lavender and this is a little bit more of a blue. So let me check this one because I can still get a little ability to lay some color down. That's definitely better than that one that was so turquoisey. Yeah, a little bit better and add that a little bit up, but it's still got some turquoise to it. So let me try to squint my eyes here. This is the more purple one. I am thinking the purple one is even though I like the blue, I think it's just a tad darker in value. Let me try it. It's a little too light. Yeah, I'm going to need something that's a little bit darker in value than that. But it's close. It's close. I'm going to add a little bit more of that purple here. I'm doing a really light touch here. Trying to darken that up a little bit. Yeah, OK. And sometimes what you're doing is you're just blending. You actually can blend a little bit with pastels, especially if you have a little bit of a harder pastel, you can blend. OK, so now I've got to get in here. Yeah, that's starting to blend a little bit better. And I do like I do like the purple better with this than that teal. So I may go in here and enhance a little bit more of the purples to kind of like I said, just give that harmony. Going to lighten that up a little bit. And and yeah, I'm liking the feel of this. It feels nice. So I kind of when I paint, I kind of think of myself as almost climbing into the painting. I I imagine myself in it and that makes it fun. So now I'm going to soften up a little bit around this one flower that's sticking up here so that it shows up more. I want that one to be enhanced. So I've got to kind of soften some of the edges behind it. Not too much get over over. Do it a little bit here and I lost a little bit of my dark under there. So anyway, again, now I'm actually really going to walk away from this. I just got to go do something different because you can get obsessed with this, you know, you just you can't stop. And that's the beauty of this is that it allows you to escape from your regular life. Sometimes we need that escape, you know, and that's always something that's been a joy for me is to have my art as its therapy. You know, why go to a psychiatrist, which I'm not really a big person who believes in all that. I think it's like the guy said in Crocodile Dundee, somebody said something about going to a psychiatrist. He said, what, don't they have any friends? So hopefully have some friends and family you can talk to. And I'm going to be quiet now and really do what I said I was going to do. All right, guys, I will share the final when it's done. And I hope you learned something. That's the goal here. And I'm so glad you joined me here today. Please subscribe if you like my channel and come back soon. Thanks, guys. Happy painting.