 Welcome to Monet Cafe. I'm artist Susan Jenkins and I am so happy to bring you this free pastel painting course that should benefit artists of every level and get you on your journey towards pastel painting. In part one we talked about the birth of a painting and the crucial first step of a value sketch. Good paintings don't happen by accident and take planning and preparation and now we'll proceed to part two called crucial first steps. We'll discuss the planning stage and we will complete a painting on unsanded paper to further develop our composition, color palette and gestural quality. A link to part one will be in the description of this video. Alright let's dive right in to part two and if you haven't yet subscribed to this channel I hope you will. Click that bell icon to be notified of future videos. Also this free four-part mini course is brought to you because of the faithful support of my patrons on my Patreon page. It's a place where you can support this channel to keep the free videos coming and get extra content. As a patron you also gain access to many of my private sharing platforms where I can see your work and we can all learn and grow together as artists. A link to the reference photo I'll be using can be found on unsplash.com. I'll have that link in the description of this video and a shout out to the photographer Giuseppe Famiano. He lives in Italy and he is a student and photography lover. Oh and one more thing you know I talk a lot about art being so therapeutic and bringing us peace and it truly does that. So I find my best painting time is when I take a moment just to take a deep breath, relax, put on some easy music and get yourself a cup of tea or something. I'm drinking what am I drinking? I'm drinking calm chamomile. This is not an ad for taso tea but it really does help with your experience. So get yourself a creative space before we begin. All right here we go. All right so here's the first landscape, a lovely field with some trees in the distance and a beautiful sky. And first and foremost we are going to just break this down into the most simplified shapes and we're talking the basics. So with my little frame here or my mat I'm going to mark off my area with my darkest marker and this time I'm not using the chiseled edge. I'm going to use the fine tip edge and I think I'm gonna do these well for the fact that I want you guys to be able to see it. I'm going to do it on the 8 by 10 outer dimensions of this. So let me just mark that off. Let me see maybe I can get, no I don't think I can get three across. Let's do this here and mark this off. And you know I typically try to work, I'm left handed obviously, I typically try to work with the camera over my other shoulder but you know to tell you the truth sometimes it's more comfortable just to have the camera over here so hopefully you guys will be able to see everything. Now I'm going to use the chiseled edge to break this down. Now take a look at this image. I'll superimpose it in the video and if you squint your eyes, I chose this one purposely because look how simple this is. What are the two? Can you see, I sound like a kindergarten teacher, can you see two basic shapes in this and hopefully you can okay. This is the horizon line. Usually we choose an image that doesn't have the horizon line right in the center but that is not a hard and fast rule. It depends on other elements in the composition so this actually doesn't bother me but what we're gonna do is we're just gonna find the basic shape. So we've got one basic shape here okay and one basic shape here that's pretty darn easy right and basically these this element down here is darker than the sky. We can see that pretty easily too right so we would have I'm not this isn't really a value study this is more of just breaking things down so we have our darkest values in the foreground of the two shapes pretty easy. Alright and the reason we do this is because often we over complicate a painting and we don't need to start thinking about little details until we get further in the painting that should kind of be the last thing. Alright so now we've got our sky don't even think about all these clouds right here. Now the next thing we'll look at is okay let's look at some of these other shapes in here and the second thing I noticed are these trees okay easiest simplified shapes sky and land. Now the trees we've got some trees here and I'm definitely gonna use this just so you guys can see it. We've got a bank of trees and I'm just gonna kind of sketch this in real quickly in the distance that comes down and I notice that this tree here is kind of a kind of not quite in the middle a little thing of trees here and kind of a rounded tree right about here. Alright there's one shape there I may have got it too far over and then we've got a little bank of trees back here behind it and then it kind of disappears because a hill is coming in front of it and we've got some more trees way over here on this hill and coming up and going down. Oh now guess what I noticed all right now I can see there's actually another hill going up and behind that one so I'm just gonna give a little bank of a hill that's too high going up here like that all right so there's our other basic shapes now I'm just gonna go ahead and get these in darker there's our third basic shape actually I prefer this tree if I have done it a little bit more here that's that's more like it not that home alright so that's really the beginning of this landscape that is pretty darn easy so I'm not gonna do anything else to this now the only other thing that I would mention with this is originally something's gonna draw you to a reference photo and what drew me to this reference photo was the energy of the field which is not represented by this okay this is just to simplify and the energy of the sky in this next example it's what I call capturing the energy it's really like step two after a value study where I'm trying to capture the gesture of this image and what drew me to it in the first place all right so this was step number one now we're going on to step number two with the same reference image I'm going to make another outline of the composition here the fine tip you know when you work with pastel you just can't help it you end up with dust everywhere I have a hard time keeping a clean surface or anything too clean so I kind of I'm giving up on that goal I wanted such a nice clean piece of newsprint alright so we're gonna we're gonna keep this concept in mind that's how we're beginning but we're gonna think about what I just mentioned which is what drew us to this image to begin with and what drew me to it was the energy in the sky and the rolling aspect of these fields so I am going to make me some marks of energy after I get in some of the simplified shapes so first let's do that I'm going to get in now I'm gonna use my middle marker now you can still just use whatever you have your charcoal pencil or whatever I'm gonna use my middle marker to get in more of the outlines of where my things are where my main simplified shapes are the reason I'm doing this is I don't want super dark lines all over everything and now already I can see that one of the things I loved about this is how I felt like there was kind of some rolling to the hill so you know I just tried to create this more accurately and I can now go ahead and maybe exaggerate that a little bit I want more I want more of a rolling hill coming up more of this going down so that's gonna give me a little bit more energy with this alright now let me get in these trees alright so I've got a little bit of that energy of the motion of the field in the background and the horizon line now I'm gonna go ahead and get in my darkest darks I know that they are these trees alright so I'm just gonna use my my chiseled end of the marker go ahead and get this tree in and those are further away much further away so now I will I know that the value is going to get lighter in the distance a good general rule to keep in mind with regards to values is your darkest values are typically going to be your foreground and vertical objects things on a vertical plane such as trees now your lightest values are typically your distant objects things get lighter in the distance and anything on a flat plane such as grass or the land so with this in mind and looking at my field again back to seeing where that energy is I'm going to get my darkest marker here alright I know this foreground is going to be darker I'm gonna get my chiseled chiseled edge and I'm gonna have to even though I write like the weird lefty way that's why my writing is horrible here I can't write this way I don't sketch that way it's a really good idea especially if you're standing now to hold your drawing utensil in a loose gesture or light handed manner so I'm going to look at this field not focus on any detail and just kind of get some of my darker values and energies in I loved how the wheat grasses were were coming up and growing so I'm just gonna represent that now you can even do this super simplified with more linear strokes but I definitely want to see where these values are there's a nice dark area in here kind of growing up trying to get the flat edge of this sometimes it's kind of hard I like how they're turning there some of these heads of wheat are making almost like a musical feeling I like to create a visual trail in the painting too but for right now let's move on to our middle value now and the first one was the CG01 it's called cool gray it's the darkest cool gray in the artesis set this one is the CG05 it's what I'm using as my middle gray now for my middle gray value I'm looking at that now everything gets a little tighter and smaller when it gets back further and I'm still looking at how these are growing what's gonna be really nice in the painting later is I see one of them is just popped its little head like way up here and you can keep an eye out for that it's really cool sometimes when it pops up over the horizon line so we're just gonna get in some of these little musical gestural marks here to keep that energy of that field now like I said to I mentioned that these in the foreground there were some that weren't quite as dark growing over a few this way so just getting in some value and some energy and trust me these things really do help to break it down before you start the painting you'll be able to remember what it is that you loved about that painting alright now this is my middle value and I do have my middle value right here for these very far distant trees I think it's a making it a little darker than I had it before this is a line of trees that's further back here and like in my notes here distant things get lighter in value just like these distant trees this second row of trees is actually a little dark in value when I go to paint it I will have it a little bit lighter than the first band of trees that last row of trees way back here to me that's just the interesting thing about this is just little bits and things that you you don't see as the primary focal point but your eye just kind of finds interest in other places alright now I'm gonna get my lightest marker and just get some of this field with more distant bands of things I also like what I'd like to represent is how the grasses seem to growing up and above some of the trees almost like you're at that angle where you're really far down on the earth I'm gonna get some of my lightest value in here definitely my lightest value back here on this plane develop the foreground a bit more but I wanted to move on to this energetic sky alright let's go back to our concept of simple shapes what is the most simple shape you can find with these clouds I I see that there's a almost like a hole in the middle here and often I like to make some geometric marks to represent things it helps me to not have these little curvy curvy lines in places alright we got the big hole right in here now we've also got some shapes right in here that are really interesting it's almost emulating the shape of the tree kind of comes up and out that and then we've got from here this shape that comes up in here I continue to develop the cloud shapes with some loose sketchy and energetic marks I'm not trying to capture every cloud form but more create the motion of the clouds and here I'm making some notes to show how values behave in a landscape with respect to the horizon line typically in the sky it will go from the upper heavens with darker values now these are not very dark because it's a sky down to lighter values at the horizon line and with the foreground it works in reverse you will have your darker values in the foreground and gradually get lighter as they approach the horizon line keep in mind this is a general rule of thumb and it has a lot to do also with the subject matter with everything fairly laid out now I'll continue to develop that energy even more once again the point of this stage is planning your painting not just according to the values and having it look like a photograph but bringing that life and that artistic touch to your painting often or usually I do the two steps in one in lesson one we talked about the birth of the painting and the values creating a value study and in this stage I wanted to break it up and talk about the energy just so I could give those two topics ample time but you may find like I do that I do both in one I'll do a value study with the energy as well but this gave me an opportunity to share with you how important it is to be able to develop what you saw as beautiful in the image whether it was from a photograph or in real life and to create your own concept and your own interpretation of the scene I also wanted to share that often it's a good idea to convert your reference image to black and white to see your values more clearly and it just takes color out of the picture literally and I just did this myself because I really felt like I had these clouds over the trees too dark and value now we can see that the darker value is really some of this blue in here especially when it gets up higher in the heavens so this is a really good trick and I just wanted to double check before I commit to painting and I can see that this value is a tad darker than these values here so just a thing to keep in mind and now let's talk about adding color while we are still in the planning stage let's talk about my setup and the products I'll be using to add color as I always say you don't have to use these products use whatever you have I have taped my unsanded paper this is just drawing paper and I've taped it to my board by the way that was newsprint I was using for the sketches it's really cheap and this is Strathmore pastel paper it comes in this pad with various colors in the pad and I just chose a really nice neutral color it leans more towards a gray-green color also just for ease and convenience I used one set of pastels this particular set is made by Giro it's a French company and this is the Elizabeth Mallory set now if you're beginning with pastels there are many pastels I recommend to get started and that's why I created a category in my amazon shop that I call beginner basics for pastel artists I have other categories with products from many of my tutorials but this particular category is the one where I share many of the products that I think would be beneficial if you're just getting started in pastels this particular one is the Canson Métants pastel paper it's an unsanded paper that's quite affordable and if you'd like to try a sanded surface which many pastel artists prefer I have a few of the more inexpensive brands available so you can check this out and read the little comments my first set of pastels like I said was a set of rim brands they're affordable they're medium softness and I only have the half sticks listed here because I think they're better buy for you now if you're going to step up in price with pastels I suggest Sennelier or Unison they have the most brilliant color and great application and this is a set of I believe these are unisons I think and also two another great set is the Prismacolor new pastels they're called they're harder but they're really great for sketching and under paintings and they're also affordable now these are other rim brand half stick sets and again there's another half stick set here that's a larger set right here and so you can read through these and see what you think and what your budget is like and maybe just buy one set to get started also two while I'm going through these Dakota pastels.com has sampler sets of pastels and papers so that is a great way to kind of experiment as well now this is my favorite half stick set by far it's made by Sennelier and well one of my favorites I should say it's 120 half sticks and the colors are great and it's on sale look at that 151 dollars this is a nice 63 piece half stick set by unison my favorite unison half stick set is the 120 just like the one I showed before it's a lot of great colors but as you can see that Sennelier Paris collection set is a great price right now on amazon so check it out I'm just trying to give you guys some resources but again I have other categories there you can check out as well and now let me share some more supplies as we start to add the color I'm going to be using a Derwent charcoal pencil of medium value and I'll also be using this sharpener I like to have real sharp pencils this is a great sharpener shared to me by one of my patrons Enrico thank you so much and because we've already been through the general sketch process I am speeding this section up here and I'll just be talking to you guys a little bit now I will be speeding up portions of this remaining portion with color with a lot of commentary for the Monet cafe channel but I will be giving a lot of real-time footage of this process right here the color adding the color for my patrons and that's like I was saying at the beginning of this video my patrons because of their support it allows me to keep this channel going to be able to provide the free content but because they are supporting this channel they get some extra content so patrons god bless you thank you so much you're going to get a lot of real-time footage of this particular portion of this lesson now you can see I have basically recreated the energy and the little sketch that I created before already and this time it is so much more fun and enjoyable because I already know where I'm headed this is what I mean by the planning stage I've done the planning I've created a value study I've created the gestural quality from my reference image and now this is when it all starts coming to life I was holding up a few pastels you could probably see before and I was just trying to find a dark value I believe I grabbed a different pastel that's a little darker because my Elizabeth Maori set didn't have one as dark as I wanted to begin and with pastel painting we typically work our values dark to light that's a general rule of thumb because we do have a layering capability with soft pastels and so I'm just doing the same thing I did before I know my foreground elements are darker and my vertical elements such as trees are darker so see how simple that was and I'm gradually getting my values lighter as they recede into the distant foreground area now here's where I'm creating that visual trail I'm adding a little bit of this purple hue to some of the trees I'm layering a little bit and even though this is unsanded paper you do get some layering capability we talk a lot about being able to get lots of layers with sanded paper but you'll be able to see that unsanded papers you really can get some nice results as long as you're not too heavy-handed and you don't overwork things and now I'm comparing some blues for the sky I like to make little color notes on the side and my goal here just so you know is to get this basically covered and the reason is because I want to establish my values even though I'm using color now I know that can get confusing to beginner artists is what value is that blue is that a medium value well here's a little tip take a picture of the pastels that you're using and convert it to black and white then put it on your board next to you and you can see if it's a middle value a light value a dark value without color getting in the way and that's why in lesson one I talked about just squinting your eyes as a great way to see values and so again I'm just basically getting in the same value study that I did when I did it in black and white but I'm just adding some color to it now this is a a great little tool that I use when a paper isn't too sanded and once again this is just unsanded Strathmore drawing paper you could use the same technique on Canson Métants what I shared in my Amazon shop that's another great unsanded pastel paper and I'm using the chamois cloth to basically smooth everything in and cover things so I don't have so much of the lightness of the paper showing through I do turn it to different angles so that I have a kind of a fresh area I try to work light to dark with regards of how I blend with my chamois cloth all right so I've got a little bit of a value study going in now and I'm going to add some more darks I want to establish a little bit of that trail that's going to be coming through the foreground I have found a dark burgundy that I think I'm going to use and this will be the same strategy that we've mentioned before in this lesson and in part one of this in the pastel painting series which is values typically are darker in the foreground and gradually get lighter as they recede into the distance and the great thing is as I've mentioned before that because we've done this we've done our planning stage I already know the energy and the direction that I want to create some little gestural strokes but you may notice that I'm not focusing a lot on details at this point and if you're brand new to painting this might be quite surprising because typically as beginner artists we feel like we have to paint almost like a paint by number paint set which is looking at all of the little shapes and painting all the little shapes in and what that's going to do is frustrate you for one but it's also going to cause your painting to be very stiff and lack life and harmony and beauty and energy so because I've already done my value study and my little study that has to do with my energy and my gestural quality I already kind of know where I'm headed so this becomes a much more enjoyable process and your painting will show that I find my best works are ones that I have done the stages I've planned I've prepared and the painting will show when I get to the stage where I can finally just enjoy the process and my painting has direction but it feels much more effortless and it's really not you have put the effort in at the beginning stages rather than sort of haphazardly creating a painting without any thought or practice and this is the point where I will speed up the video and add some music I will be giving more commentary for the Monet Cafe channel the free version but my patrons will be getting all real time from this point on and also some nice music to listen to and and some commentary so you guys enjoy don't go anywhere I do have more commentary but just gradually watch the process keep in mind the value concepts that I've talked about so far incorporating color at the same time enjoy this is the point where I realize I need to wrap this up I won't have many more layers left and I really wanted to accentuate the focal point now while the wheat field was a an interest obviously a point of interest my main focal area or my concept of the focal area was the clouds and this particular area right here I also realized my little wheat grasses that I wanted to pop up over the horizon were nice but they were kind of competing with my focal area so I'm going to show you a neat little trick of how you even on unsanded paper how you still have some flexibility to be able to remove things so I wanted to relocate them so they weren't just right there and I wanted them more pointing to it but not in that focal area if you know what I mean so you see here how I'm just using a one of the kind of pink tones and it's a lighter value and I'm just kind of scumbling it around in areas to give some drama to the sky now here's where I just got a stiff bristle brush and I just brushed off some of the pastel even though this was dark an area of high contrast dark on really light I was still able to pretty successfully remove it or subdue it at least and kind of redevelop where I wanted some of those grasses to be peeking up over the horizon and keep in mind this is still just a color study and I often do them smaller as I mentioned before but I thought for filming purposes it would be easier to see as an 8 by 10 size or 10 by 8 size and I keep re-establishing this fact that doing these really does affect your final painting for one thing you've gotten a lot of practice you've already done a value study you've simplified it you've done a value study hopefully creating your general energetic composition thought process and then you've done a color study and when you go to create the final you may want to tweak the colors you use which I do because of one of the next steps that's coming I'll talk about and doing this also helps you to really hone in on what your focal point is and purposely try to create areas that lead you to the focal point but don't steal you away from the focal point now what I'm doing here is those grasses you just saw me adding they are of interest but they're not stealing the show they're kind of just leading you into the painting and notice too I haven't gotten real fussy with giving too much detail to any of the wheat the little heads of wheat on the tops of the grasses they're just suggestions notice too how they are spontaneous but still harmonious I often think about nature that way how grasses blow and how clouds move and even though there's a spontaneity to it there's still this beautiful harmony so keep those things in mind while you paint and these things do get easier I mean you don't want to be messy with it you want to keep your general motion but give that random grass and you know going off in another direction sometimes so this was loose and fun and really did help me develop my concept for the final painting which I'll be doing on a sanded surface in part four but part three is actually going to be about developing an underpainting which I believe really influences this particular final piece all right guys I hope you enjoyed part two I'm excited to bring these lessons not only to the Monet Cafe channel but to my patrons and give you guys some extra content I hope you're learning a lot and as always God bless and happy painting