 Welcome to Monet Café! I'm artist Susan Jenkins and I'm really happy to bring you this tutorial where I will teach you how to intensify color with soft pastel. It's a question I get all the time. The reference image is a lovely winter scene with a lot of neutral color that I decided to intensify. And I want to thank the photographer who shared his lovely photo on pixabay.com Sebastian Nicoyel. And if you haven't yet subscribed to this channel I hope you'll do that right now and click that little bell icon to be notified of future videos. And just like my last video I'm once again using the Arteza black acrylic pads. It comes in a set of two. I love these square six inch by six inch sized pieces of black paper. They're water-friendly. You can use oil acrylic. And what I'm going to be using on this is clear gesso by Liquitex. Yay! So Bob Ross is excited. Now the reason I'm doing this is clear gesso has a little bit of texture to it. Almost like a little bit of sand in it. You can kind of see it when I apply it. I apply like two coats and it dries clear. And what that does is it gives me a little bit of texture to apply my pastels. Now these are Prismacolor new pastels, spelt in you pastels. And I'm just using this kind of medium value blue to get a general sketch in. And once again this clear gesso. A lot of times I apply it after I've already put down what I call an underpainting. But in this case I really wanted to do some negative painting which is painting the spaces between things. And black paper is awesome for doing that. So I thought with this one I would just go ahead and work on the black surface with the clear gesso applied. Now the last one that I did, the last video, I used this black paper and I did what was called an oil wash. I used oil paints and pastels together. And I missed a little bit of the footage where I did the oil wash. So not to worry. I have another tutorial coming where I do another oil wash with soft pastels. I think that'll be the next one that I upload. So I am just getting in general shapes here and I like to keep it really sketchy. Now with roads I often, or paths or whatever, I often like to keep my form a bit more geometric rather than curvy. I think it has more of an artistic feel to it rather than these curvy winding roads. So all I'm focusing on, I kind of zone out when I'm doing a sketch and just get in generalities. Also it really helps if you're new at art. It helps to sketch things out when you have your reference image the same proportions as your drawing surface. Now mine doesn't look that way here because I cropped it. I cropped my reference image to be square just like this paper. And now I'll be using a combination of warm tones to get this sky in with the Prismacolor new pastels. New pastels are harder than a lot of pastels and they're really great for doing an underpainting or initial layers. And that's because they don't take up a lot of the tooth. With soft pastels the reason we need the grit is it'll fall right off if it doesn't have something to hang on to. And some of the professional sanded papers they're literally like sand paper and they hold lots of layers. So by putting the new pastels down first you ensure that you're able to get more layers afterwards. You haven't filled up all of that tooth of the paper. And so what I'm doing now is I am notice I'm not getting super specific about trees and shapes. I'm literally just squinting my eyes. I'm looking at colors, values and shapes. And I kind of zone out and I forget about tree leaves and needles on pine trees. And I'm just painting shapes and colors right now and values at this point. So I do come back and reshape things a little bit towards the end. But I wanted to go ahead and get in a general beginning for this sky that would kind of set the mood. Now what I'm going to do is we're going to go through this whole tutorial. This is real time. A lot of this is real time. A little bit towards the middle here. I'm going to speed it up so that we can get to the final what I consider the real lesson in this is more towards the end where I really start to address the sky. So right now this is just some generalities. I know that I want to get in. I've learned over the years, many years of painting that I don't paint what I see. I reinterpret it with color. I intensify color often. But I'm using the rules of nature, which I'll talk about soon. Now, I used a few products in a video not long ago where you can liquify pastels, water, alcohol, and this product, mineral spirits. Now in hindsight, I really wish I'd just left the pastels alone. But I was put on my scientific experimentation hat again because what this mineral spirits did here, this is typically how you use it. And on white paper, it actually intensifies the colors. And on this, it just kind of made them kind of bleed a little bit. But not to worry when I blew it dry, it looks real dark when you put it on. But when it dries, it goes back to the original color. Now, why would I do this? Well, in this case, I don't think I should have. But in a lot of paintings, I really want to soften things up and give it more of a moody impressionistic feel. So wouldn't do this again. But now you can see when I blow it dry, it did kind of soften things a little bit. And, you know, no harm done because I can paint right over all of this. Now, what I'm doing, it might sound strange to go in with darks on a black paper. But actually, this paper is black, but it's not as dark as some of my pastels. And this dark blue pastel is kind of like a dark, maybe blue. I believe mostly for this particular lesson, I am using the Sennelier 120 half-stick set of the Paris collection. I do use a few other pastels, such as the new pastels I used at the beginning. But my patrons, if you're a patron of mine on my Patreon page, you'll be getting my color guide. I am trying now with every painting to give my color notes. And I make a little diagram of all of my colors and which manufacturers they're made by so that my patrons can follow along or pick colors that are similar. Now, if you don't know what Patreon is, it's a really neat way for people to support artists and other creative people. And it's a safe and secure way where you can basically contribute $5 a month. And my Patreon page and my patrons support has truly been what's helped me keep these videos coming. During COVID, my husband and I lost our regular jobs. And if it wasn't for my patrons and my Patreon support, I definitely couldn't keep these videos coming. So thank you patrons. By the way, I have a special contest going on now. If you become a patron, you could win this painting. And another one, I'm giving two original paintings away. They just looked good together. So if you've considered becoming a patron, now might be the time to do it. There's no long-term commitment only with this contest or promotion. You have to become a patron in the month of December for $5. And then you have to still be a patron on January 1st because that's when I'm having the drawing. So I'll talk more about that at the end. And everybody gets my free 2022 calendar with my original artwork. So on January 1st, all of my patrons will get that. It is a digital calendar. I mean, you have to print it out, but I'm going to give some neat things that you can do creatively. All right, you see I've added these darks in here. And if you just look at the reference image and squint your eyes, I mean, that's all I'm doing too is I'm looking at where the darks are. Definitely those trees and even coming into the foreground area and along some of the edges of where those ruts are in the snow on the path there. Now here's where the magic starts. This is one of these gorgeous colors that's in the Sennelier Paris Collection. And I often say I have numerous titles I could give videos, but I need to stay concise and stick to one about the dramatic sky. But I could have called this snow isn't white. And I mean, it is white in the right lighting. But in so many cases, snow is in shadow or it can be in the sunlight and it can have a little bit of a warm color to it. So I'm just using this little teal color middle value pastel to kind of scumble in. Notice my marks are very light to the touch and kind of sketchy. I like that look, especially at the beginning. And it really once you learn to get that light touch, you're going to save yourself so much frustration. Your colors are going to appear more fresh and you'll also have the ability to layer more on top. If you're very heavy handed, you fill up the tooth of your paper very quickly. Your pastel colors start to look muddy. Pastels literally have like these little crystals in them that sparkle. And if you press too hard and over layer, you muddy your colors and you lose that color vibrancy that is inherent to this medium. I'm going to do another video one day on, I think I'm going to call it 10 reasons why soft pastels are my favorite medium. There are some very unique things about soft pastels. And I think that's why so many people have fallen in love with them. Now, if you've been on my channel long, you know, I work in other mediums. I happen to love watercolor too. And I've really been enjoying oil, the little bit I've played around with it. So you never know what you'll get on this channel. All right. So that little teal pastel was used for the road and some of the snow on the trees. And this set I love. It is the Mount Vision Thunderstorm Gray set. These are beautiful neutrals. Notice how they're all kind of dull in color. They're neutral. And neutrals are a very powerful part of your painting. What neutrals do is they allow the bright colors, the bold high intensity, high saturation colors to really shine and do what they need to do. Which is say, hey, look at me. I'm the focal point. And so the neutrals help to be the supporting cast to direct your eye to those more punchy colors, as I like to call them. So I've been using these Mount Vision Pastels here that are a tad more neutral. I mean, they're still very pretty colors. And as I mentioned, I'm going to talk a little bit more about the concepts and the principles for painting the sky towards the end. A little bit about color temperature, value and color intensity. All right. Now I've got a pastel that is a little bit warmer. Can you see it looks a little bit more mauve, very neutral, though. And the reason I'm using that color, it's these background trees, they are, I'm going to develop them a little bit more, but they are near the sun. And therefore they would have a little bit more warmth to them. Okay. Now I've gone to this beautiful, this is part of the Mount Vision Pastels again, the thunderstorm gray set. You see it's got a hint of a lavender color to it. Also that's even a little more warm than say like a blue, a cold blue. Lavender has a little bit more red in it. Now I'm going down towards the bases of some of these trees. I know they're, these are the ones that are a little further away, but they're still going to have some dark on the shadow side, on the side that's more like where their viewer is and also down where they're in shadow more towards the bases. Now I knew I had not really gotten all the shapes in or the values incorrectly at first. And when I was making that sky, I lost some of the tree shapes. I wasn't worried about it because I knew I could develop them like I'm doing later. Notice that one really tall pine tree way in the back there or evergreen, some kind of tree. So I'm just getting that, I liked it. I thought that was a good point of interest. And now I'm just making, with evergreens and pine trees, the branches seem to kind of go in a little zigzaggy way. And I like to keep these just spontaneous and I'm really just sort of looking at the shapes of the tree. I don't get all caught up or hung up on it being exactly like the tree as long as it has that general essence of evergreen or pine tree. And so that's all you need. Often I think we think art is harder than it is. It's really just shapes and color, you know? So we don't, and often too, we don't need to paint everything that's in the photo. We want to preserve the detail and the higher contrast for our focal point. And for me, even though this road brings you in with some very interesting color and sketchy kind of quality, it's that sunset in the back. Those beautiful glowing colors that are going to be the main focal point. Now you see I've just scumbled across some other of this mountain vision. It's another neutral. And I know I'm using colors that you wouldn't, you know, just at first glance think are in this reference image. But I am using the reference image as a guide. And I'm using the logic and truth of how color behaves in nature and in a scene like this. For example, if you've got cooler scenes, things that are in shadow, your colors are going to be cooler. I know that that road, if I was to go in with Photoshop and grab like one of the lightest lights off that road, it's really just going to be kind of a dull gray. And but it's going to have some color to it. You know what? Let me do that to prove my point. Okay, here I am in Photoshop with my reference image. I'm grabbing the paint brush tool. Whoa, that's that brush size is way too big. So I'm going to reduce the brush size. This is not a Photoshop lesson. It's just a way to prove my point about color. Now you see this little triangle over here to the upper, far, right. That's going to respond to my color picker. I just did something where my tool turned into a little eyedropper and it chose the color that was in that sky. Now where I put it over there, the little circle on there, that's the color. Now if you go to the left, colors get more neutral. I'm talking about the little triangle. If you go down, colors get brighter. And so what I'm going to do, let me grab something in the snow. I'll pick right there and you'll see it change over on the little triangle. That's the actual color. Okay. See, I told you it's kind of a gray, like a dull gray. I don't know if you can see this on your screen size, but if I move horizontally in respect to the triangle, it's going to make the color brighter, but keep it the same value. So what I just did is I punched up the color in that area, but kept the value the same. I hope that makes sense because I'm saying that all the time when I'm doing lessons is you can get creative with color if you get the value right now. Picked another area. See how dark that area was? But if I move over to the right and choose a color that's a little bit more vibrant, I can use it in the same area. And it makes sense because the value, the lightness or the darkness is the same. So you want to get your value right, but you can intensify the color when your value is the same. So hoping that makes sense. I'm just clicking around so you can see how it moves. And also I can change that circle that goes around the triangle. I can move it and make a color warmer. I just made it more teal. And so I kept the same value, but I changed the degree of coolness or warmness to the color. I wanted some teal in there, but I have my value correct. Again, I know this is a real fast-paced Photoshop lesson. Now I decided to cool it off and put some purples in there. I probably got that one a little bit too light. And now if I wanted to give a little more color to the light areas of the road, same thing. I can use the color picker. I can choose a color that's a little bit more vibrant within the same value, same lightness or darkness. And I can make the road a bit more colorful and interesting. So obviously, we're not going to be doing this in Photoshop. We're doing it by the pastels that we choose. Go for the value that's correct, but you can intensify the color a bit and don't overdo it. Okay? I'm probably even overdoing it with this example just so you can see it. But if you just punch up the color, that's why I like that word. Just a little bit and keep the value the same. Your paintings are going to be more vibrant with color. Now I'm going to do the same thing in the sky. I'm going to zoom in a little bit though so you can see it. So I'm going to do something similar here. I'm going to choose one of the RNG. I've already done a little bit of it actually in this example. I'm picking some of the yellow and I'm actually making it a little darker. Now this is a case where I am changing the value a bit. What I do with sunsets is I know, I know the principle of sky holes is where when things are filtered or they've got leaves and branches and everything in the way, the colors seem to get a little darker in value. And so I purposely intensify that when I'm doing sunsets. I think of my source of light, which is the sun, and I know that it's going to be bright, but down where the trees are, it's going to be a little darker and I make it a little more rich. Again, that's my focal point. Now I'm playing around with some color. You see how I added some pinks there? Now, why would I move towards pink as I move away from the sun? Basically, I'm just using the same principle as I mentioned before. Consider the sun. Anything near the sun is going to be warmer. We've got oranges, reds, yellows. As things move away from the sun, they cool off. And if you just think of the color wheel, colors are going to lean a little bit more towards pink as they leave the yellow, orange and red area. Then they gradually will turn to purple and gradually to blue. So I'm using the principles of the color wheel with respect to light. And also, right now I grabbed a little bit of blue, kind of a grayish blue. The upper heavens are usually just a little bit darker. So I'm using my artistic license to darken that up a bit. It's going to create it more of a mood. And usually the upper heavens are going to be cooler. And why is that? They're away from the source of the sun. And if you just use some of these principles, once you learn them, it's like I always say, painting isn't hard. It's just learning some rules and learning how nature behaves. All right, so let's get back to the painting. And I will talk more about those principles when I get back to the sky again towards the end of this. And once again, most of this is real time. I'm going to speed up in just a bit some of this middle section so we can get to talking about that sky. And notice too, I'm using these, now that's a nice cool blue. It's almost a pure ultramarine blue color. And it's just such a nice cool color to use for the snow. Again, the snow is, I'm not choosing to use whites or grays for snow in every part, you know, in some parts. This is a little bit more neutral, a little more gray. And again, you need neutrals for other things to stand out. And here's where I'm going to speed it up just a tad. This is not overly sped up. You should still be able to follow. And I'm going to add you some nice music until we get back to that sky and talking about how to create the drama and intensity for a beautiful colorful sky that makes a clear focal point. All right, guys, enjoy the music. I'll be back. Oh, I hope you enjoyed that music to my painting process. One of those songs was pretty lively. All right, now I'm going to move in to do more of the sky. But I wanted to slow it up here to show you that I'm adding a little bit more dark to some of the tree trunks. I still have some of the color principles going where the trees towards the back are a little more lavender. They're catching a little bit more of the sun. They're going to be warmer than the trees in the foreground. Now, here's back to that principle that I showed you in Photoshop, where I punch up the color. Now, this is where I've been very light-handed for most of the painting. But I'm giving a little bit more pressure here because this is my focal area. And I'm doing what's called negative painting here. I'm painting the spaces between the trees. And I'm just making these little marks. But the darkest ones were down deeper where they would go into the branches. And as they get more of where there's open spaces, they get a little bit lighter. And of course, where the source of the sun is, you're going to have your most yellows or lighter colors. And I usually don't go light as in white, what your brain might say. I go brighter, meaning it's still a lighter value, but it hasn't lost its color intensity. And so, as I said before in the Photoshop example, and now I'm using kind of a mustardy color, I want to transition between that red and the lightest or the brightest yellow, I should say. So, I'm moving a little from red to orange to my lighter yellow. And now, again, I'm using this, still where the sun might be. I'm trying not to get too far away from that sun, but where the yellows won't be quite as light in value. Think of it again, like the color wheel, radiating out. Now, I am adding a little bit of this to the path. There may be some of that sun that is peeking through some of those trees. It wouldn't be much. And I think this one was a little bit too light. I kind of tone that down afterwards. But, yeah, you might have some of that light cast onto the road. But consider, that's why I always said, become a student of nature and look at your surroundings. It's really just how it behaves. Now, here again, getting away from the sun, that's why I went more towards pinks. It's on the color wheel moving away from yellows, oranges, reds, then you're going to get to pinks. Then you're going to get to lavenders and purples. Now, I'm using this lavender, this is part of the Sennelier set, to catch some of that snow that's on these branches. Once again, I'm not going for white for snow. It is lighter, but it's not a white light color. And I thought this color was perfect for just dancing around and making some indications of snow. Now, I grabbed this little bit of a teal color. I thought that would just be interesting. It's a little warmer than a blue and I thought it just made a neat combination with some of that blue and that pink I had already put down. And that's the beauty of pastel layering. If you keep a light touch, all of the colors when you layer them, they interact with each other and they play and they have fun. And that's why you don't want to have such a heavy hand, because you destroy that. You destroy that ability to see the other colors peeking through each other. So again, just doing a little negative painting, carving into some of these trees. And I don't get overly carried away or worried about if all of my little shapes are just right. I just look at where it would feel artistic, you know, and what might just look painterly and loose. And this is a little bit of a lavender pink. And again, I'm getting a little closer to the source of the sun. And I wanted to lighten up some of the sky. I felt like it was a little too heavy. And this lighter value was a good transition. So I hope those principles I've described helped. I know I destroyed sunsets and sunrises when I first started painting with pastels and I remember studying other artists. This was back before I had a whole lot of, there were many YouTube videos. I mean I'm old guys. And so I had to really just study paintings and look at what they were accomplishing or doing. All right, so you can see the transition from the reds to the oranges, to the yellows, to the pinks, to the more lavanderies, to finally up to the blues in the heaven. Now again, I've got, this is my little new pastel. I just snuck in a little bit of those darker colors. Once again, in the tree negative spaces, especially when they get down towards the trunk where it's getting deep into the tree, those values are going to get darker. And I reserve the right to, or the tendency to over accentuate certain colors. I just wanted it in a few areas and mostly was that first red that I put down. That really was the bam. That red, in contrast with the cool blues back there, that is one of the focal point strategies that's going to really cause the viewer's eye to go there. And if you haven't seen it, I have a video. I really studied a lot to create this video. I think it's called Five Ways to Create a Focal Point. And that is one of them. It's color contrast where you have opposites on the color wheel. And now I kind of dulled out the sky in the upper heavens. Why would I do that? Well, if I had all this drama and color intensity in the upper heavens, your eye would go there. It'd be bouncing around all over the place. I want to reserve it for that end of the road. I realized I had lost some of my tree branches. That evergreen in the front was a little bit bigger. And so, you know, the great thing is even with this clear gesso, look at the layering I've been able to achieve. And I will say I really like this black artesia paper. You can work on regular black paper. It doesn't seem to curl as much. By the time I'm done, these really flatten out nicely. And something about it being made for acrylic and oil paints, it just really receives the clear gesso very well. And I'll definitely use these again. And artesia products are, they're affordable. So I do have, just so you know, I have still in the month of December this painting and the one before, I would say is a little more intermediate level. And I wanted to bring some for my beginners. You beginners are so appreciative every time I do something focused for you. So I created four paintings on watercolor paper, a very affordable surface, and show you guys how to break it down, simplify your subject more. These paintings are not quite so detailed and just easier, you know. So, and I have fun with them. They're real loose and lively. So those are coming soon. I tell you what, creating the videos really takes longer than the painting. So for any of those out there who maybe create videos yourself or have a YouTube channel, you know exactly what I'm talking about. So I now, wait, I got to say one more thing. You see, this is like a neutral, almost green. And I thought that would be kind of interesting back there. Once again, green's a little warmer, right, than the blues. So that green, closer to the sun, the sun is going to make things appear more of what their real color is. And we know these trees, most likely in the light, would have green in them. And think of color this way. As light decreases, the color intensity decreases. I mean, I just went in my closet the other day. I didn't want to wake my husband up. He can't stand it when I turn the, I'm an early bird. He didn't want me turning the light on. So I try to go in my closet in the dark. There's a little bit of light from a night light and pick out what I'm gonna wear. I had the most horrible outfit on because you can't see color. Okay, here's the final. It was a simple little six by six painting that packed a powerful dramatic punch with that sky. And once again, the majority of the pastels I used were the Sennelier Paris collection. I also too, if your colors or your pastels don't cover the color chart, I always make my own like this. It's a great way to refer back to a color you may be getting low on and you want to order another one. Also too, for my patrons, I will have your color guide. You can see all the colors that I used to create this painting. And as I mentioned before, if you become a patron of mine in the month of December and you're still a patron on January 1st, you will be entered into a chance to win this painting and also the painting from the last tutorial I uploaded. I thought they both just look so beautiful together. I sat them next to each other. I'm like, oh my gosh, I have to give these away together. So we'll have one winner for that and all my patrons are entered to win. So make sure you become a patron, be a patron on January 1st and you will not only get a chance to win both paintings but every single patron of mine will be getting a 2022 art calendar featuring my original artwork with some of my favorite Bible verses. Now this is a digital calendar. Okay, I want to make sure everybody knows that. I'm not mailing out a calendar of you know, 500, 600 people. So you do print it out. I've printed them out on some card stock from my printer and they look great and I have some creative ways I can share with you guys how to display it. I put a little clip at the top of mine and I'll put it on a little stand and I'm ready for 2022. So all right guys, God bless you all. Thank you so much. I hope you're enjoying these lessons and I have some beginner winter scenes on the way. Happy painting!