 Welcome to Monet Café. I'm artist Susan Jenkins bringing you some online free art instruction. This is part of my beginner series and I'll be focusing on a new and very easy underpainting technique along with lots of other great tips for beginners and really pastel artists of every level. And by the way about 90% of this video will be real time to make it really easy for you guys to follow. So here's some good news right at the start. We're using a very inexpensive do-it-yourself make-your-own pastel paper. I'm using watercolor paper, really just about any watercolor paper would do. It doesn't have to be very expensive. And I have taped it down with masking tape just to avoid the buckling. It still did buckle a little bit but really by the end of the painting it flattens out pretty good. Now I'm using a reference image that's literally right out of my own backyard. A field of cows and a beautiful pasture. I'm so blessed to look out the window of my art studio and see these beautiful cows that aren't mine but they've kind of become my pets. Now all I'm doing right here I am speeding this part up. It's a good idea to do a little initial sketch. I'm just using a charcoal pencil and rather than having my field kind of flat like that one was in the image you see there on the right pretty much the trees look like they're all straight across one horizon line in the upper third. I decided to give it some depth and some perspective so I went ahead and gave the trees some levels and I'm also creating a little visual path that'll kind of be underneath that leads your eye into the painting. Now I'm just using my finger. This is a value study basically just to kind of blend and get a general idea of my composition and to work out any issues I might see before I commit to painting. Here basically I'm just wetting the entire surface of the watercolor paper. You just want to get a good coat of water on it and I also meant to mention that watercolor paper typically has a textured side and a smooth side. I'm using the smooth side for this painting even though I give it a lot of texture that you'll see later with another technique. Now I will be doing another simple supply you need will be some watercolor or really anything to tone this watercolor paper. You could even use pastels if you wanted but in that case you wouldn't wet the surface. So what I'm going to do is I'm basically going to create a complimentary underpainting that is in the rules of value. I'm going to go light to dark. I talk all the time about value typically being darker in the foreground and lighter in the background. So we're just going to go ahead and set the mood or set the value stage early on right away and I found this was a great way to do an underpainting. I'll definitely do this again. Typically I might do a value underpainting kind of emulating the actual composition. Sometimes I'll do an underpainting that's just one color but this was kind of a neat way just to go light, medium, and dark. You'll see what I'm talking about in just a minute. I'm really creating right here just some little puddles of water. My paper is already wet. My watercolor paper that we previously wet and it's had time to kind of saturate into the paper but I'm creating these pools. With watercolor I've learned I used to be frustrated by watercolor. Now I've come to love it. Don't be afraid of the water. Sometimes we're a little too stingy with not having it fluid enough. So that's why I'm adding water and making my little puddles of water and watercolor to go ahead and do a wash. Now I have my surface laying flat down on my table. I know a lot of you guys have said you like being able to see my pastels laying beside me. One disadvantage to this is if you wanted a wash to blend typically it's better to have your surface upright. It didn't matter to me in this situation because most of this is going to get covered up anyway. So basically all I'm doing is the lightest value at the top. A nice warm yellow. The middle value in the middle. And I am giving it some directional strokes. I really want this painting to pull your eye in. So that's why my strokes are getting more vertical in the foreground and then horizontal in the background. Kind of how things work in nature. We usually see things in grasses anyway more vertically up front up close and then as things go back into the distance they kind of flatten out. So that's kind of if you see my stroke work here that's my general concept or thought with this. Now you can see this is nice and flowy and impressionistic. Nothing has to be too fixed with this. As a matter of fact the looser the better. This is an underpainting and it really does set an impressionistic mood when you keep it loose. Now I'm impatient so I have a blow dryer real handy in my studio and I went ahead and blew it dry. All right here's the magic product that works so well to create your own pastel surface. It's clear gesso. Not regular gesso which I'll explain why in a minute. But first let me talk about this very coarse textured brush that I have. I wanted this painting to have a lot of texture. That's why I said I probably could have used the textured side of the watercolor paper. But all I'm doing is taking this clear gesso. Again I'll talk a little bit more about the gesso product in a minute. And I'm brushing it on to my surface in the same manner kind of as I applied the watercolor. I'm kind of going a little more horizontal in the background and a little more vertical in the foreground. Now the pastels I'll be using for this painting will be exclusively this set. It's the Unison 120 half stick set. I have had the past three or four videos using just this set. Really and for a couple of reasons. One is to prove that pastel artists can get started with one set and really create some lovely artwork without having to spend so much. And you can get a smaller set than the one that I showed there. But again that's the only set that I'll be using. Now I'm just recreating the sketch. I'm just using a charcoal pencil and you'll be able to see here that this didn't require much of a sketch at all. Basically just the different levels of trees. Now what I'm going to work on first is my darkest values. I've got some nice dark values in the set. I've got a dark blue. I've got a dark burgundy. I've got a darker purple. And typically with pastel painting we work dark to light. It's similar to oil and acrylic because we're able to get layering down. Unlike watercolor which usually you work light to dark. And again this set has really great darks and I did a product review. Like I said a few videos back and it's got a little bit of everything that you need. And it's laid out so well with regard to color and value. So check out that video. I'll try to put a little link up here where you can find that video rather quickly. Now I'm laying the pastel on its side. I love the half sticks for many reasons. Half sticks you get double the pastels for your money. You know because they're smaller. And a lot of times if a stick is longer with pastels I break it in half anyway. I like the shorter size so that I can turn it on its side rather than working from the end of the pastel. So that's all I'm doing here. And even though I know these values are going to decrease in the distance with regard to darkness. They're going to lighten up in the distance. I'm going ahead and getting it down because I know I can lighten up those trees by the color and value choices that I that I choose afterwards. So right now I know this foreground tree is going to be the darkest tree because it's closer to the viewer. And I also know that this particular color I'm using here is more of a burgundy. It's a warmer color and colors get warmer as they move forward towards the viewer, which you can see even in the underpainting that I did. Now I did what's called a complementary underpainting. My scene has lots of greens and blues in it. So that's why I used the complement. If you look at the color wheel, I'm just adding more darks here. I did a combination of the blue, the burgundy and the purple here. But on the color wheel, if you look at the opposite of greens and blues, if you have a scene that has a lot of greens and blues, the opposite side of the color wheel will show you what that color's complement is. And that's usually a great color to use as an underpainting because it's going to make those greens just vibrate and look so luscious and beautiful. So I quite often use an orange or a quinacridone gold is one of my favorite colors to put underneath for landscape painting. So it's a really great underpainting color choice if you do a lot of landscape painting. So that's one of the reasonings behind why I chose the colors I did. And again, to reinforce one of the neat things about this, like I said, it's kind of a new underpainting technique is just go ahead and go with what value does in nature. It goes lighter in the distance to darker and warmer in the foreground. So our bands of warmth, the way we created them and the different values works great. You've already kind of got that established from the get go. Now as I'm working here using a little bit more of this, that one was too light, but a little bit more of the warmer burgundy color. I wanted to mention that I'm leaving the little scratchy sounds. A lot of times I will just do my voice and get rid of all the sound. And then sometimes I'll do music when I'm not speaking. But in this case, my house happened to be quiet and I was able just to leave the volume where you can actually hear the pastel on the surface and you can hear actually how textured this is even with just the clear gesso back to the clear gesso again. It has little bits of sand in it, which regular gesso does not have. So that's one of the reasons why I said you can make your own homemade surface using clear gesso. But don't get the regular gesso. Another thing too, regular gesso is white. It would just cover up your beautiful underpainting. So clear actually lets you see through to the underpainting that you've created. Also too, I wanted to mention I'm creating this video for both Monet Cafe and my Patreon page. Often the Patreon page gets full content. Monet Cafe gets a little less. Not always. But with this video, I because it's part of the beginner series, I know we have lots of people who are really, really wanting some new solid instruction, also some real time instruction. So I thought this would help a lot of you guys out. Again, I always share I am always going to keep providing the free content on Monet Cafe. My patrons, which if you'd like become a patron, it's only $5 a month. You get extra content. We have a lot of fun. We have contests. We have a homework album. You have homework on the weekends. It's not like homework in school. It's fun homework and it's fine if you don't do it. But the more homework you do, the more you increase your chances to win one of the prizes, which is art supplies. So it's really kind of cool. We have a lot of fun and the great thing is also a great way to support this channel. It really is blessing me financially to be able to make Monet Cafe better. So if you want to become a patron, it's awesome, but I'll keep bringing free content here as well. All right. Now you see I've just added in a little bit of the grass color, literally just real light gentle touch. Okay. You don't want to get too heavy quickly here. Now in this part, I want to talk to you a little bit about again how value decreases in I always have a hard time saying that because the value scale is opposite. For example, you would think one would be the lightest and ten would be the darkest. It's the opposite. Ten is the lightest and one is the darkest. So that's why it sounds a little flip flop to me even coming out of my mouth. So I always usually try to say value gets lighter in the distance and gets darker in the foreground. So that's why I'm making these trees in the distance lighter and notice the color change. I'm also making them cooler. Not only does value get lighter in the distance, but color gets cooler in the distance. Now, I just wanted to zoom in so you could see some of my color choices that I have here. A lot of darks, some kind of darker but middle value blues that I'm using for those trees in the background and a little bit of that green. Now, also too, well, let me talk a little bit about the sky here since I'm doing it and and the point I was going to make is perfect here. I'm just laying it on its side again and I kind of want the you'll notice when this painting is done, there's a pull to the from the bottom up to the right like a sweeping motion of the grasses and I wanted those clouds to do that and my reference photo didn't have any of this content in it, but that's how you can improvise. You can break out your artistic license and go, you know what? I like that sweeping motion. Let's just go with it and make the clouds like that too. So I'm just keeping a super light touch at this point and that's back to my point. I've had a lot of artists who share that they they get in the Patreon group because I get to talk to you guys a lot in there. You're getting muddy too quickly. Your your colors will get muddy if you layer too many layers of colors or and if you're too heavy handed. So I wanted to point out here. I am having a super light touch at this stage. Also another point that I need to I still tell myself this all the time. Don't feel like you've got to get a certain part of your painting finished. You'll notice when I work on the sky that I stop working on it and it still looks rather pardon the word. It looks rather ugly. The whole painting looks kind of like it's in its I love some artists said it was like it's a adolescent stage. It goes through its teenage years and you can even doubt yourself as an artist at this stage thinking, oh my gosh, what am I doing? I used to say that I've finally gotten where I know it's just in its teenager stage but I used to say that quite often. My husband would walk in when I was working. He would sense my frustration and I'd be like, oh my gosh, I just I don't know. I just don't feel like I can paint and he's like, you say that every single time and then at the end your painting looks good and so I want to encourage you guys that that's kind of how it works with pastel painting. I've seen a few artists where it kind of looks great from the beginning but usually it goes through that stage and you want to just go with it because if you if you fight too hard against that stage and try to get one area looking just right your painting won't be harmonious and cohesive because you you'll end up over layering for one and and you get your values kind of out of kilter if you don't work the whole painting at the same time. So keep a light touch from especially those beginning stages. Gradually your strokes can get harder with more pressure towards the end not at the beginning. So that's just a little thing I was I've been wanting to say to you guys and not to get frustrated if it looks a little yucky at first. I mean look at this right now this doesn't look so great. So anyway I'm now working some of the lighter values in the grasses. I know they're going to be more horizontal things far away. You don't see the vertical grasses. It looks flat so I have more horizontal strokes. I know that field's going to be lighter in value and I know it's not going to be quite as warm. So the grasses that I have in the distance are going to be less intense with color and less green. Okay they're going to be cooler. I don't have them totally cool like a blue for the grasses back there but they're not going to be as saturated with color or as warm in color as my foreground grasses that you'll you'll end up seeing. Now on that note this is a middle value green that is kind of warm that I'm getting kind of for the middle grasses. I throw a little bit in down here too but I end up really doing much darker in the foreground because that's how value worked. There we go. I already knew I needed to add some darker grasses in the foreground. So notice how what I've done even with the greens has simulated the same underpainting concept that I used for the warm watercolor underpainting. Darker and warmer in the foreground. That orange middle color of the watercolor. I have a middle value pastel for the green and a lighter value kind of like it going up towards the yellows for those distant fields and the sky. So that's why I said this underpainting technique of doing the bands of different values is great. It worked you already like I said you've got it established already and it I think it's a great strategy for beginners and like I said I will definitely use this again and I'm surprised I've never actually done it this way. I've usually done one color like I said or a tonal kind of representation of what the painting is already. Like I would use like dark reds for the trees and I like that technique too. So enough of that. Let's stick to what we're doing here. Now I'm getting some greens now in these trees. They're going to be darker green because they're closer to us. I'm putting a little bit of it in these trees but you'll see as I work it's okay to get the darker values down first. I will gradually lighten those trees up just a little bit more than that foreground tree and that's what's going to create that three-dimensional effect. That's really what art is that we're taking a three-dimensional world we're putting it on a two-dimensional surface and we're trying to create that illusion of three dimensions on two dimensions. It's like magic. I actually took magic lessons when I was a kid and I'm not talking about dark magic. I'm talking about illusion. I love the art of illusion and that's what we're doing in art is we're creating. I think that's why people are fascinated by art. I love it sometimes. Oh see now let me talk, let me stop with the storytelling. See how I those distant they could be mountains or trees in the background that are the light blue I put down. You see how those instantly look far away and I talk about this often in the videos. It's the same concept as mountains in the distance when they look purple or they look blue. It's because we have so much atmosphere air between us and things that are far away. We don't think of air as having that effect but it does. So it it literally takes color away. It'll make color more neutral in the distance and less warmth because of that atmosphere in between us and the distance whether it's mountains or trees or whatever. So now I'm just gradually adding some value. I kind of wanted to notice how I have like a band of dark kind of upper middle across there. I wanted kind of like some grasses that were making almost a division where there's like a hill kind of going over to the next hill but at the same time on that note I want to stress that we don't want to create a visual barrier. That's why you wouldn't want a fence going right across the middle of a painting. So I don't want to do that with this dark band that I put across there. I gradually give a little break in there so that the viewer's eye doesn't get stuck right there. Now I'm going ahead even though I'm going to end up putting more darks down. Again we like to work dark to light with pastel painting even when it comes to flowers even white flowers. We typically put down a darker value so that the white has something to stand out against it but I went ahead and put some of that purple down there. Pardon my computer sounds. Purple down there to kind of establish where I wanted some of the flowers but I'm using that purple in other places. Often I say I like to maximize if I got a pastel in my hand why not work it throughout the painting in areas that I see I might use it. So that purple I know is a great shadow color and it looks great in the distance under trees and so it really did add some depth to some of those grasses and shadows in the tree area. Now I'm kind of playing around with the color at this point. I love this blue that's in the set with mount vision. It's just a gorgeous blue. It makes for beautiful blue flowers which really ends up being the color of the flowers by the end of this painting. And so now actually I wanted to come in. I felt like my oranges and my yellows weren't quite bold enough and because I still haven't covered up the underpain that much I'm just establishing re-establishing that color underneath and on that note too I wanted to mention you probably noticed when I put the water color down originally it looked a lot darker than after I blew it dry and that's the way watercolor works. It lightens as it dries. So I thought you know what I really did love that warmth and it's also called I love the way another artist puts it putting down the dirt. Again you're getting that that depth and that darkness and you're also getting that warmth that would be like the dirt or the ground color to lay your greens on top of. So that's why I went ahead and re-established some of those richer colors and look at that. Again this the set of mount I'm not about mount vision I love mount vision too. The set of unison has such a great assortment of colors. I did a painting using them for some really bright red flowers and it's got the most awesome reds in it as well and some sets have a hard time getting punchy red colors. So I know I've been bragging on the set a lot but it really is a good all-inclusive set and hopefully you've noticed that other than the quick little things I sped up such as the sketch and just the putting the watercolor down and blowing it dry this whole video has been real-time other than that beginning portion there. So I'm really hoping this will help the beginner too. The painting took me in total about an hour I think about an hour and I'm trying also in this video right now you're seeing the full painting here so that you can see my pastel selections on the right side there. However you may have noticed that I've zoomed in and and that I do that post painting in the editing phase so I go literally go through this whole video and I look at places that it might help you guys for me to zoom in so I do that in my movie editing software. So hopefully that's helping you guys out and again I love it when you give me feedback in the comment section of the video it helps me to know what you guys want what is working for you guys and that's really how this channel has become what it is is because I listen to you guys you all help me out a lot so here's another like what I was saying where I have zoomed in so that you can see. Now I have kind of a little light purple there and I know some of those shadows like where I said I was trying to create the idea of a hill rolling into right underneath or behind where that dark band is I know with a hill there's going to be a little shadowy side so purple is a good color in the distance to use to create that. Now I'm kind of playing around with color with some of these but I played around a little bit with this kind of pink color got a little bit of that established underneath kind of like again kind of a dirt color and by the end of the painting if you recall the beginning painting that I showed when I started this video it does all become very blue and green but believe it or not even though you don't see a lot of the underpainting showing through it really is doing its work it's doing its job underneath and it would not look the way that it does if I hadn't had the underpainting established to begin with. If I had just worked on white watercolor paper for example see I could just take see how those pinks just added to those trees yeah I mean see how that just kind of the color just came alive but again I could I could take a piece of watercolor paper white watercolor paper apply the clear gesso which basically turns it into a form of pastel surface that we can work on and get our layers and you know I could work on that and and I've actually found out from one of our other patrons you can actually apply on top of the clear gesso if you want I just find it feels more practical to do it underneath the clear gesso but anyway if I were to do it all on white and do the same painting without that beautiful bands of warmth of the underpainting it would not have the same effect I should really do a video lesson on that I've done lessons where I have two different colored under paintings but I don't think I've done one where I just do white um again I mean you could create a good painting like that but I love color and so I love having that complementary color underneath sometimes I'll pick a crazy color as an underpainting and you know I mean why not this is art we're not trying to create a photo realism reproduction unless that's the kind of art you like but that's why I love to explore with color again there's certain rules we have to follow to make it believable or to make it appear three-dimensional such as the value rule and the the color getting cooler in the distance color getting less intense in the distance but as long as you follow those rules value being one of the most important ones I have a video on value if you're new if you haven't been doing art or if your your passion for art is reignited I find that a lot with a lot of our members you you didn't have time during your life because of your family or your work and now you're getting a little more time so if your passion for art is reignited I suggest that you check out the value video if you become a subscriber and I hope you do the value video I think is the featured video when you look at my channel our channel Monet Café so I find that is one of the most important things you can learn as a beginning artist is how to render value correctly it's going to make a huge difference in your artwork so it's a lot of fun but to all you beginners don't get frustrated because and I'm saying this from experience because I got very frustrated I did not know what I was doing with pastels at all I picked them because just as I was saying I wanted to get back into art my kids were getting a little bit bigger I sort of needed it as therapy for some challenges I was having and so I had a hard time I muddled along and made so many mistakes YouTube wasn't as big a deal back then when I first started I did find some forums and groups where I got a lot of questions answered but that's kind of why I started Monet Café was I thought you know what I'm going to just carry you guys along with me as I learn if I'm a few stages ahead of you why not share with you guys what I've learned so now while I've been jabbering let me get back to talking about the painting if you were to pause the video right now and go back just a few minutes you'll see that it's kind of starting to take shape right and I've worked over the entire painting rather than getting too fussy in one area now pay attention to what I'm doing here I'm doing what's called sky holes rather than carving the individual leaves and branches and things of a tree most artists professional artists do negative painting when it comes to trees and even clouds but pay attention to what color would be behind that tree you know like for example when I was doing that one with the sky I knew there was some yellows and blues and when I get down further into the tree I want to make sure I use that blue color that's like the mountains back there so you have to use the appropriate color to carve in your sky holes alright so now I'm using a little bit more of this blue kind of establishing it through the painting drawing the eye remember there's going to be blue flowers in the foreground if you remember the initial painting in the beginning of the video and I want them to be almost like they're growing throughout the whole expanse going way into the back but you won't see individual flowers way back there that's why I have kind of those blue bands alright now back to working a little bit more on the sky notice I said I didn't want to overwork it but again I'm trying to create that sense of blue in this so I went ahead and used that blue to create the idea of some clouds with some motion and some movement but now I know I want to go ahead and lighten that sky up a little bit too so I'm getting a lighter value and I'm taking it down closer to the horizon line just over the treetops and often and I felt like that one was a little too white it was a little too lackluster so I'm going to get a a light value but a brighter color okay you see see the difference that made right there the white was dead and this bright yellow looks just so vibrant and beautiful that's going to draw the eye back into the painting too but typically not always but typically in a certain area in the background there's a little lighter band right above the tree line in the sky so that's usually a pretty good and fun technique to do to create that sense of reality really because that really does happen in real life usually the sky gets darker up towards the heavens and lighter down towards the horizon now I wanted to get in some of those pinks so now you can see as I zoomed out the sky is starting to take a little bit more shape but I still I decided you know what I'm going to move on I don't want to get stuck on the sky and once again your painting feels more complete when you work the whole thing rather than getting too fussy in one area plus I mean this kind of sound funny maybe but I get bored sometimes working in a certain area I'm like okay I'm tired of this guy let's move on so that actually is ended up working in my favor that helps me to to work all over the whole painting all right now so I have talked your ear off right let me know if I'm wearing you out too so I think I will leave the little scratchy sounds here I'll put on a little light music and just pay attention to how I'm using value and color throughout this oh and before I forget if you're a patron of mine and you choose to do this particular painting even using your own reference photo following this lesson please remember to include it in our homework album so you'll get credit for next month's drawing actually the beginning of July we'll have the drawing for this month's homework and if you're not yet a patron and you'd like to be one here's the link right here but there's always a clickable link at the end of every video all right guys enjoy and don't go away I wanted to mention here that I was getting close to being done here and I am using the only other pastels I forgot I had used other than the unison set are these new pastels by Prismacolor it's new in you not new as in new and old so I love these they're really great little harder pastels for getting in little grasses and things and some people like them for finer detailed work I actually just sketch with them on regular sketch paper so it's kind of fun when you travel I usually just take a little set of new pastels with me and they're a lot of fun so also too can you see I'm not quite done with this yet so keep watching but can you see how that underpainting is really peeking through not just along the edges but even in those middle grasses there's that warmth that's kind of underlying behind this so you know that's an answer to one of the questions I get all the time why an underpainting I know a lot of people totally cover up their underpainting and if an underpainting is just to help you get a good start and establish where you're going with the painting that's a great thing too but I think it's really great when the underpainting let it do its beautiful thing which is peeking through and showing through also to another thing I wanted to oh let me stop here and say this is where I'm doing that negative painting like I said the sky holes notice how I chose the color of what's behind the tree those grasses if I'd have chosen the yellow from the sky that wouldn't have been believable at all so that's kind of the way you roll with sky holes and also too another thing I wanted to mention is the gorgeous texture that is showing in this painting you'll see the final painting at the end it's just because of that brush stroke work that I did and I really like the texture also too I'm re-establishing right here to create that sense of depth I know those grasses are lighter in the distance so I'm using some of some horizontal bands to kind of establish that feeling of you know grasses growing way in the background and here's the fun part when you use watercolor paper and you tape it down like I did tearing it off be careful slow is the key slow and pull away from the paper will keep it from ripping I often tape my papers down to where I can paint all the way to the edges but I have to admit sometimes I do kind of like it this way too where you have that nice clean border and the painting if you experience it being a little bumpy when you apply your water and your watercolor and your gesso hang in there just work the best you can with your pastels I just kind of go with it with the bumps and by the end of the painting it's really pretty flat I also give it a good tap especially when working flat like this for filming purposes okay here's the final see that gorgeous color peeking through see the motion the texture so I hope you enjoyed this let me know what you think and I hope to keep bringing you more beginner videos coming your way so God bless artists and happy painting