 Welcome to Monet Café, your own little personal art studio, a virtual studio at home. This is a scene that I took some video of and I'm calling this episode painting a moment and I titled the painting Wind Dancers. It was a beautiful unexpected moment where I just went for a walk while on a trip and these wild Queen Anne's lace flowers were blowing in the wind and dancing in the wind and it was just one of those moments you want to capture and remember. So I did a painting of them today. I hope to do more of the pictures that I took and I thought I'd give you a little video of me in my studio. I know I'm always zoomed in up close where you can't see but I thought you might like to see that it's really just a little 10 by 13 room that I work from. Again this is the studio that my husband and I renovated an old home after the flooding of our home in 2017 and we've been making it work. You know we don't have all the conveniences we had in our other home but we make it work and this is just I wanted to show you I've got a standing easel. I have a sitting easel. This is just me taking a piece of you art paper that I'll use for this painting, taping it up on my easel. I have all of my pastels to the left of me. I'm left-handed. I have that tall shelving next to me and it works really great for having my pastels and art supplies all very accessible. Accessibility is key when you're painting. You don't want to have to stop and run and hunt something down. So over the years I've gotten a system that works pretty well for me. As you can see on the easel there the you art paper it will warp in humid climates. I have tried darn it to find a way that it won't warp. I put it under heavy things. I keep it in its packaging as long as I can but you know lo and behold it always seems to warp on me. But I have ways that I can flatten it out. I actually have a video where I show you how you can iron your art paper. Now I'm just getting all set up here and I also have you'll see my iPad to the right of me on a little shelf and those shelves just so you know are from IKEA. I love those little shelves. They're inexpensive. Now I keep a little box of index cards to the right of me. I love to do a little notan. This is not a beginner video by the way. I mean it could be a beginner video but I'm not focusing on beginner videos like I've been doing lately. But a few videos back I have my process in a beginner video of how I create a notan or a value study. They're very helpful. They kind of loosen you up for one. They get your values kind of correct. And it gives me a direction of what is the feeling of the painting. What do I want to capture? What was important about that moment? Again like painting a moment. Now I am going to speed some of these things up in this video. I think I'm going to keep some real time at the end. But this is just me. I'm looking at the reference image and I will include the reference image when you see me actually painting. And I'm looking at some pleasing positionings of these flowers that are called Queen Anne's lace. I like how it had a sweeping motion kind of going from the bottom right up to the top right. It was sweeping around. And I liked just the playfulness of the flowers. So this is just to give me an idea of where they are and where I want to place them. And now I'm just doing a quick little value study. This doesn't have to be anything or it shouldn't actually be anything very detailed. You're basically just getting in three values. Well actually four if you count the white of the paper. A dark value, a medium value, a light value and then the white of the paper. And again it's really to establish a composition that's pleasing and a harmonious structure or foundation for your painting. And I find these really do help me. As simple as they look and as messy as they can sometimes look. It really does help me once I start painting to remember what it is I wanted to capture about that reference photo. Now here is where I wanted to show you a little trick or a tip. I really liked the reference photo had a longer more narrow format than my UART paper does. My index card happened to have a little bit more narrow format. It's a three by five. So I want to get the same proportions on my UART paper as that little index card. So all you do is you take whatever image or proportion you're wanting to emulate. You put it in the top corner of whatever surface you're working on and then you get a straight edge and you take the top corner of the little paper you're working from in my case an index card and you put it on the bottom corner. Just a diagonal top to bottom, top left corner to bottom right corner and then wherever it ends up at the bottom of your paper like there I just make a little mark with my pencil right there at the very bottom of the UART paper where that ruler ended up. That's where I'm going to, I just measure, I think it was just like a couple of inches and you didn't see me do it, but I made a line down that and I ended up putting a piece of of artist tape to block it off. Now here are the neocolor wax pastels that I'm going to be using for the underpainting. I sometimes forget about some of the materials I have because I have some stuff all stacked away underneath these shelves and I thought oh my gosh I love these wax pastels. They look like crayons actually, but the magic comes when you add water to them. So here once again I'm just going to, I'm actually just using here a new pastel in you pastel. They're harder pastels. You can kind of sketch with them. You could use whatever you have. You could use a charcoal pencil. I like the new pastels. I like to pick one that's not black and I'm going to be using a lot of these mossy greens. So I thought I'm just going to go ahead and sketch out my my little value study where I really kind of liked the placement of the flowers and just sketch it out with this new pastel. I like to focus on and I'm trying to get better. I'm always trying to get better myself. Trying to get better at letting the flowers turn. There's a beauty to the composition. If you can have the I always say the flowers seem to have a personality to whether turning and facing and dancing like I said I called these wind dancers so that they're not just all flowers facing the same direction or or static or stiff. Also different sizes not just turning different ways. You're going to have different sizes, different layers. Some are closer to you. Some are further away and I'm trying my reference photo was a pretty good composition. So I'm I'm kind of I'm sticking to it to a degree but you know I don't like to get so fussy that I feel like I have to do everything just like the reference photo. Then I start to get too tight. Okay here's the fun part. I've got a like it's a dark bluish greenish color. It's maybe more of a teal blue and I'm doing my darks kind of around. Notice I'm kind of going around the flowers. I want to keep the flowers fairly light to remember where they are for one thing. I am going to darken them up believe it or not even though they're white flowers I lay down darker colors before the white. So as you can see I'm also I'm working around the flowers but I'm moving it kind of directionally. I'm trying to keep that momentum of the strokes kind of sweeping up and now the sky I am going to have those clouds up top so I'm kind of leaving that blank for now but I liked that that blue sky back there. I'm using more of a cyan blue or a teal blue for the sky. I don't know why I just felt that mood more than a sky blue color and so I'm just kind of working it in and around the flowers and then I think I'm going to end up using a actually because the ur paper is kind of creamy colored oh now I'm using oh I'm blending in this it's a really neat lavender purple leaning more towards the blue rather than the red side of purple and I'm just adding some of that in and amongst the flowers and to give that other color I put down a little bit more pizzazz. You'll see when I add the alcohol to it you could add water or alcohol I use alcohol just because it dries faster. Now I'm adding another purple with these and again you will see the pizzazz when I add when I wet it the colors will just kind of play with each other and really look vibrant and beautiful. Now is where I think I actually I was saying before the color of ur paper is actually creamy color so I have a white in this new pastel not new pastel neo color two wax pastels and I use a gray and a white just to kind of get that the cloud value in there a little bit. I was actually couldn't remember if they come out very good the white color but when I started adding the alcohol it actually did lighten it up a little bit it was kind of neat. Okay so I'm about to get finished up here and now it's time for the fun. Okay so I'm using alcohol but you could use water if you want. I even had somebody ask can you use like drinking alcohol like gin or vodka or whiskey and you absolutely can if you want it to stay light in color I would stick towards the clear liquors. I do think people have actually used white wine. Now I'm using I use a bigger brush the better for me it keeps it loose so I'm going to use that wide flat brush. I didn't feel like going and finding anything else. I have a bigger round brush sometimes I use round sometimes I use the wide one and then I just had my paper towel there because when I dip my brush in the alcohol it's pretty wet and drippy so I just dab it a little bit on the paper towel you'll see me here I just do a little dab dab not much because I I do like the drips the drips give it that impressionistic feel. Now you can't see right now that that light or the white and gray I put down showing up but you'll be able to see it in a minute it it does actually blend kind of nicely. So I'm focusing on sections at a time basically because if I just blend everything together it'll become like mud so but I'm not worrying about drips they actually drips go with the the pull of the earth or gravity if you want to call it that and they make really great lines if you're doing stems or things like that I mean you don't want your stems always straight but or trees so the drips kind of enhance things sometimes now you can see that white actually is it's lightening it up a little bit so just playing around a little bit here and as you will see when I get to the darker colors that's when it really starts to get fun especially because I added like three or four different colors and again I'm working around the flowers but it's not that big a deal if the if the alcohol drips in the flowers like it's doing there it kind of gives it that dreamy you know neat feel you see those colors look at that in that fun and I am also using my brush in a way again instead of just painting straight up and down why not go ahead and get that feeling of that energy and that movement that's happening because of the grasses so I'm trying to focus on that a bit and really just trying to get it kind of all blended in so I'm going to speed this up a bit now to finish this I thought I'd add too that a lot of the more recent beginner paintings I've been doing lately I've been doing a warm under painting which means you just use the warm tones from the color that side of the color wheel in this one I really wanted to get those those cooler tones in this underneath the grasses and so that's kind of why I went with this particular color palette for the under painting now you can kind of see how it just gives that dreamy impressionistic feel and now let me show you my pastel selections these are the pastels I've chosen and I may look like a lot I usually don't choose this many to begin with but I really didn't want to have to go back and pick more so I just got a big variety these are going to be my sky colors I have um a variation in values from dark to light I even have a little bit of this purple in there um skies well with everything you you don't want to just layer one color it's so much more interesting if you have colors of similar values like um like this blue um like a more of a teal blue and this lavender are going to kind of play on each other a little bit in the sky this is my darkest these two are my darkest this notice is a little more um periwinkle colored um and these two will be more in the upper atmosphere in this case kind of right in between the clouds in the top and then everything gradually gets lighter in value as it goes down to the horizon or what's behind the flowers and of course some of the lighter colors here or values here will be for the the clouds the whiz I'm going to keep them very wispy um I've chosen for the actual queen Anne's lace uh you basically lay down your darker value first and kind of layer on top of them with lighter values so I'm going to use some of these you know the little pods that hold them are kind of a warm green so I'm going to use a combination of some of these greens for that and then gradually layer the flowers I'm actually seeing they're not just white I'm actually seeing um some other colors in there this is a white that's actually kind of got a little peak pink or peach tone to it and some of these colors may um make it more interesting before I lay the lighter colors on top I've got some neutral colors in here too that add to where you don't want something to be the star of the show or stand out more than the other flowers it's nice to have neutrals that push those flowers back like these are these are both a little more neutral for flowers that may be hiding down in the grasses and I have a variation of other greens in here for grasses and things like that and for those pods it's the pod right before the flower opens they're so interesting and oh I just think God's world is so amazing and they're darker and so I have some pretty dark values here and some lighter ones to kind of go on top to portray those little bits that are about to open up and so I've got a variation of green and some neutrals and then here I've got of course some of my darker colors here darker values are going to be the darkest darks down in the deep grasses and they will help to ground that earth before I put down the lighter wispier grasses on top so this is just something to start with and play around with and we'll see where we can by the way I have a variation of types of pastels these square ones that are longer I break them unfortunately I accidentally broke them one time when they fell off my easel but these are great americans and they are nice and buttery I prefer terry Ludwigs to the great americans that's just a personal preference these are terry Ludwigs they are so buttery and smooth and great for final strokes at the end or layering at the end so any of the ones that look kind of square little little shorter rectangles are the terry Ludwigs and some of these in here sometimes I can't tell the senelier from the unison but usually if they're round mine end up looking a little flat because I use them on the sides and some of the smaller ones I may I have some jack richison in here these are jack richison they're rounder like this and let's see what else I have in here of course I have over here I have the giro pastel set I just bought and I do love those those really make nice linear strokes at the end of a painting too because they're kind of a medium to hard pastel all right time to get started and I am going to keep this real-time footage I believe the painting took over an hour maybe about an hour and 15 minutes and just you know I enjoyed this moment not that I don't always enjoy painting but there are sometimes when I'm painting and I'm still kind of thinking about the things that I have to do and it just that's a that's a joy stealer so for this painting this morning I just enjoyed the process listen to the rain outside and it was just a nice nice experience and again it's kind of like the point of this video you're trying to capture a moment or a memory or an experience that you had and you know that way the painting will hopefully remind you of that moment and that time in your life you know there was an old singer or he's old like me now I'm sure Matt Davis and he had a song called Stop and Smell the Roses he actually was a really great songwriter and that's just a good philosophy you know so anyway here I wanted to point out that I'm putting in shapes of where the flowers are going to be and even though you might say but those are white flowers why are you putting down like a medium to lighter value green and you put your darks down first with pastels typically now those darker ones that I'm doing now those are the pods if you look at the reference image you can see the pods that open up to become flowers they are darker than the flowers the whites aren't showing yet but again back to the whites that I'm talking about the the lighter color green I put down first the white has to have a foundation something to to rest upon also we know that they are part of that pod that opened up so you put your layers down the the flowers if you just put white down there they're just going to get lost in that blue sky they've got to have a darker value foundation to rest upon okay so that's typically how we work with pastels we lay down our darks and gradually work up to our lighter layers that's the opposite of how it is with watercolor watercolor you usually work light to dark you want to preserve those lights in watercolor because you can't really get it back you want that luminosity of the paper so again I'm just getting in the the motion of the flowers the like I say the personality of the flowers the sizes of the flowers and I am using a very light touch here it's something I've been purposely trying to work on is not filling up the tooth of the paper too quickly I've often I've painted too quickly and too heavy-handed and sometimes that has to do with your mood like I said sometimes I'm thinking about too many things I may be a little more stressed or whatever but if you can just take a deep breath put on some music relax and take some notes and put next to yourself on your easels light touch I think it was Karen Margulis I think she got it from another artist who said a light touch is the right touch you can always go back and add more pastel but you can't really you know effectively I think get the the tooth back you know unless you start brushing it out and I love the efficiency of stroke where your strokes are put in the right place to begin with not that you can't be random but you don't want to go back and fuss and fix things a lot. Now while I'm working on this I thought I'd mentioned too in my last beginner video I mentioned how some of you guys have been so sweet and kind and I think a lot of you from the Monet Café art group know that you know I've had a lot of life challenges and stuff and I try to bring these videos I try to bring consistent just because it's my heart my passion and I I love to help artists in their you know art education and learning but it does get hard sometimes so some of you have been so sweet to say you want to help you want to support the channel and I can't tell you what a blessing that would be for me I would be able to do more I would be able to have better equipment I mentioned in the last video just recently had to buy a new Mac book pro computer I didn't expect and you know the Lord provides but I do have other ideas there is a studio light that it's not super expensive but it's just one of those things you know you just kind of got better weight on that but if you guys would like to support the channel I'm going to come up with a way that you can do it I may create a patreon account that's more just for Monet Café channel support and I will I'm thinking I will you know like to hang out with you guys or you know while I can't give a whole lot more time to a patreon providing more videos on there it could become a neat little thing for those who would like to become patrons for the account and something neat for me to kind of just deal with you guys that end up ones that want to support the channel so might be kind of a neat experience so I've heard of feedback from you guys and it sounds positive so I just may explore that again feel free to give me feedback on that I also have a PayPal if anybody ever wants to support just one time rather than doing the patreon thing it is uh let me find the name of it again it is PayPal.me slash Monet Café I'll put a link up here I should I should include that you know in all the videos but I don't know I just I have a hard time asking for any help even though I could use it so anyway all right back to painting enough of that so I'm just continuing to work here and the main point that I'm or the main thing I'm working on right now is basically getting where these flowers are if there's any smaller flowers and there actually are some smaller flowers I add at the end I I don't have to put those in right now I don't have to work around those I can layer those and then put grasses on top of them now what I'm doing is I'm going in I'm working around the the bigger flowers that I've put in and I'm adding the dark um I've like you saw in the pastels I've got like three different selections of a dark I'm paying attention you may not be able to see um on whatever screen you're looking at I'm paying attention to where the darkest darks are there's some parts in the grasses that are just really dark and and deep like they're down closer to the ground and maybe a lot of grass is growing um so and I'm again still trying to keep that movement I felt that sweeping motion still I I actually could have emulated that even more I think that's what I'm going to try to do with these uh Queen Anne's lace photographs that I I got I got a whole bunch of photographs and video footage by the way take video footage sometimes of things um reference material and you can often get way more um material because you can just pause the video at any spot and take a screenshot so I got a lot of video footage of these flowers as well and I think the more that I do the more I'll loosen up and uh and keep that what I see in my mind anyway in my in my mind I see them just flowing in the wind and moving so uh I'm going to do more of these um give me your feedback on that if you'd like to see more Queen Anne lace uh flowers and also anything else you'd like to see more of I like it when you guys um give me recommendations I had a recent recommendation from uh on one of the beginner videos to do more uh or to do a beginner video on reflections and I actually happened to have footage of that um I I took one day and did about um five um small to medium size paintings and I saved the footage so I've got about three more beginner videos that I'll be uploading soon one of them does happen to have reflections in it it's not going to focus totally on reflections but I will um I will give a little instruction on reflections now I'm adding um that more of a purpley color um even though the clouds are going to be lighter I'm putting down the dark see those clouds have a little bit of a a shadow or like where rain may be starting to accumulate so I'm getting the darker shadowy arrows areas in first and um then I'll add the the lighter colors on top of that and I liked how the clouds were reaching kind of out to the sides so I wanted to keep that energy and and uh feeling in the painting I love I say this often but I love how flowers and trees and things reach to the heavens and just seem to praise the lord and I think that's why I like to paint them a lot is this just like a rejoicing feeling you know I mean it's just beautiful how how all of creation just uh has this beautiful harmony and um and life and uh beauty to it so all right now I'm adding the lighter it's a lighter blue um but it's lighter than that um kind of teally more teal blue that I put down before and uh I'm just keeping again a very light touch and uh continuing to build slowly and gradually with this I even like this rough stage you know I say this often I'm able to look back um when I film myself and see some of the areas that I may have kept even more loose than the final painting all right I am going to keep this real time but I'm going to add some music let you guys watch and enjoy and I'll add some more commentary as I see things I'd like to give you advice on and by the way the song that I'm using it was like a just a sweet little memory for me it's one of my earlier videos um when I first started doing videos it wasn't one of the first ones but it was pretty early and it's the song that I used it's a it's actually one of the songs that youtube has in their audio library that they allow you to use and I think it's called The Temperature of the Air and it was a video of mine that actually got a lot of views and a lot of people mentioned that they like that song and and I always did too so I'm using a song that I used in an old earlier video and I hope you enjoy the music I'm getting close here to finishing and I really wanted to try to capture deep within those grasses where some of these really beautiful bluish purple flowers and so I wanted to hide those kind of down in the grasses like that and I just think that gave the painting a little more pizzazz and beauty so I hope you enjoyed this I hope you learned something I will continue to keep trying to bring more free videos your way as long as I can so I am very blessed to have this channel because you guys bless me as always happy painting