 Are these coloring crayons for artists? Welcome friends into Monet Cafe Studio and I think you will be fascinated as I share with you about these beautiful sticks of color that make a magical combination with soft pastels. In this lesson, I'll demonstrate neocolor to water soluble pastels that literally explode with color when you wet them. They make a perfect underpainting to combine with soft pastels layered on top. It's a really fun way to paint with beautiful results. You can purchase them on multiple sites, but I found they were a pretty good price on Amazon. The 40 set that I have is around $65 on Amazon currently, but they have smaller sets available if you just wanna give them a try and maybe just try the 15 color set. And I'm going to tell you all about why I love these and how to use them in this tutorial. Here's my set with the labels removed, of course, and I often like to break them as well. I like to keep remnant pieces of different soft pastel surfaces and watercolor paper just to be able to quickly grab something and paint. And I knew for this particular surface, I wanted something water-friendly and light color like this white color. This is a sheet of pastel matte. And again, I chose it because it is water-friendly. I'm going to be applying water to these water soluble wax pastels. And I chose white because I want the brilliancy of these wax pastels to really show up. You can get this pastel matte on dickblick.com. I'll have links to all the products in the description of this video. The reference image is actually one that I took myself. I was having a hard time finding where I got this photo and I realized, oh, it's one that I took when I was in Naples, Florida at a beautiful state park. I just loved how gestural and carefree these flowers were. Here are the pastels. I am not using all of these pastels. I just have a selection of some different colors and specifically some nice golden colors and red colors for some of these flowers. And now it's time to apply some of these wax pastels. And I'm going to be doing what's called an underpainting. If you've followed me or you're a patron of mine, you know that I love to do under paintings. I feel you can really get some great color vibrancy. So what I'm doing is I have one that's kind of an orangeish red color. And I'm just blocking in some shapes of the trees. Notice that I'm just going to keep this super gestural and basic shapes. Nothing specific. We're certainly not drawing any flowers at this point. And by the way, if you're a patron of mine on my Patreon page, you're going to be getting this whole painting and tutorial in real time. But I'll tell you more about how to become a patron later. And these are two additional colors that I chose. I mentioned that I like to break them. Sometimes just to be able to do what I'm doing now, turn them on their sides and block in larger areas of color. Now, why would I be using kind of these reddish colors and pinkish colors? It's because I like to put down, there's a kind of a pink color right here. I like to put down complementary colors to what is in the landscape. Complimentary colors are just colors that are opposite on the color wheel. And in a landscape painting, there are a lot of greens and blues. So the opposites are going to be typically reds, magentas as I'm using here, oranges and yellow. And by laying these colors down first, you're going to cause your landscape to just pop with color. And here is a little spritzer bottle. No, it's not body spray or cologne. It's actually some rubbing alcohol in this bottle. You could also use water or you could just use a brush with water. But I like to just spray on a little bit of the alcohol. The alcohol literally just dries faster. Okay, water works about the same, but often I like to use the alcohol. And I think you can instantly see how this color is just exploding. I love that fact about wax pastels. These neocolor two water soluble pastels are the only ones I've ever gotten. I don't know if they even have other brands of wax pastels, but they're so fun. And they're similar to another product I've used often that's called Derwent Intense Blocks. They are also water soluble and they might even be a little more vibrant in color. I'm not sure, but they're both great products to use. And so you can just see, I'm just kind of maneuvering this around. I also love not just how the color explodes when you add water or alcohol. I love how it creates just this dreamy, soft underpainting. And it's just really such a nice way to begin a landscape painting. As you can see, I'm also going ahead and utilizing the fact that I can get some brushstrokes in that kind of emulate my reference photo with some of those tall flowers, stems and grasses that we're growing up. For the sky, I know it's going to have blues in it. I want it to go a little lighter. So I just got like this pink color. And I'm just kind of scribbling in some of this color in the sky area, maybe like kind of where some of the clouds are. Another color that's good to use for the sky is yellow because yellow is opposite of blue on the color wheel. So yellow is a complementary color. You can lay down in the sky, which will really cause the blues that you add later to pop with color. Now I've added a little peachy color to the sky. And once again, I'm just going to spray it a little bit and wet it just to kind of blend it in and get it softer looking. And now I have let it dry and I'm going to add another neocolor to wax pastel. I need to get some of the darker values of these trees in. I could have gone ahead and used soft pastel at this point. But another great feature about these wax pastels is they don't take up any of the tooth of the surface, so to speak. If you're not sure what I'm talking about with that, basically soft pastels are a medium that you really can only get so many layers down and it kind of depends on the surface you're using. This pastel matte will actually take quite a bit of layers of soft pastel, but using these wax pastels really don't affect the, they don't sacrifice one of your layers, so to speak. You still are able to get as many layers of soft pastel because these become liquefied. So by using them, you're literally preserving all of your layering ability of the soft pastels you'll apply later. So I got in some of this pretty bluish teal color. I think it is when I add water, you'll see the color. Oh, here's the teal color I'm using. One is more of a bluish purple and this one's teal. And I got some of the trees in and now I'm just getting in a little kind of path or a hidden dark trail in some of these deeper grasses. And you're gonna see this come to life when I add the water. These are really fun too. Let me add that as an extra bonus feature. I think it just gets me in the mood to paint and I feel like my paintings end up more free and fun when I start in this way. All right, let's spray on some more alcohol and I think you'll be surprised at the color. Sometimes you can't even really tell what exactly the color's gonna look like at first until you add some water or alcohol. That's surprising, huh? I kept thinking it was purple, probably cause I had combined it with the pink in the back and it was giving that illusion of purple. But this color is like a beautiful teal color. And so I'm just using my brush in little gestural, almost sketchy type of strokes, just to give the idea of those trees that are growing far away in the distance. And now I'm gonna use my brush just to move some of this wetness around. Again, to just give an idea of where some of these shapes and gestural grasses are growing and reaching. And I'm not covering up all of the pink underneath. I'm letting some of that peek through. And even though I will be applying soft pastel to this, some people are always like, you know, why are you doing an underpainting if you cover it all up with soft pastel? Well, typically I don't cover it all up. There's almost always a little influence of that underpainting peeking through. And like I said, it's just fun, it gets you in the mood. All right, everything's dry again now and it's time to start with these pastels. And now I'm gonna speed things up on the Monet Cafe channel. But if you're a patron of mine, you will be getting the full real-time content of the pastel application. If you'd like to become a patron of mine, it's easy, patreon.com slash Susan Jenkins. It's only $5 a month. I get to see your work and it's a beautiful community of artists. Also, don't forget, like this video, leave me a comment, I'd love to hear from you. And subscribe, of course. Come on, become part of the Monet Cafe family. And now it's time to apply soft pastels. And even though I'm speeding this up on the YouTube channel, I still think you can get an idea of the process and the technique. So I'm adding some of my darker values to get that distant tree line and some of those deeper areas of the grasses. And now I've chosen a few blues to add to the sky. I'm kind of avoiding the area that will be the cloud. I actually kind of liked the placement of the clouds here. And notice that I use more of a turquoise color down by the horizon line. Colors tend to get warmer in the sky. The closer they get to the horizon line. And turquoise is a warm blue. So now I'm adding a little bit of greens to the trees. We typically work dark to light with soft pastels, getting our darker values in first and then gradually adding some of the lighter values. I wanted to get some more warmth down in those grasses. So I added a little bit of magenta and blended with my finger to soften up things. And now it's time for some of these flowers. Now you may be thinking right now, those flowers are yellow. Why are you choosing an orange and some of that kind of orangy red color there? Well, the flowers, if I went directly for yellow, they're gonna look very flat. By adding darker values and some other colors, you bring a depth and a richness to elements in your painting. You'll see as I develop the flowers. Again, we typically work darker to lighter values. Now I'm adding some of those centers to these black eyed Susan flowers. And I'm trying to put the flowers not necessarily exactly where I see them in the reference image, but in areas where I think they would enhance the composition. Then pull the viewer in to meander and explore this painting. And now, yes, it's finally time to add some of these yellows. This is a beautiful, buttery, yellow color. It's a Terry Ludwig pastel. And this one's a little bit brighter. I think it's a blue earth pastel. And you may be thinking, well, haven't you covered up all of that underpainting with the Neo Color Wax Pastels? And you may think so, but at the end of this tutorial, which is real soon, you'll see me zoom in and you will be able to see the influence of that underpainting peeking through. And it really does make a difference. For example, if I had just painted this on the white surface without the underpainting, it would have felt a little bit more flat and not as lively in color. So there really is a rhyme and a reason to the underpainting strategies. Adding a little more fun to the sky and a few more little stems and grasses. And this painting is done. And here is where I'm gonna zoom in closely so you can see some of that underpainting peeking through. You can see the pinks, that little magenta color, some of those rich blues that I put down in the foreground. And it truly does make a difference. And these wax pastels are so fun. But remember, if you don't have them, you can use other products. You could use watercolor, gouache, acrylic ink, and just use what you have. All right, everyone, I hope you learned something. Please let me know if you did like this video. And again, if you would like the full real-time content for this video lesson and so many more, consider becoming a patron of mine on my Patreon page. It's only $5 a month. You can cancel at any time. All right, everyone, God bless and happy painting.