 Welcome to Monet Café. Friends, visitors, artistic people, and subscribers. Today's lesson is going to be using acrylic ink combined with pastel for a beautiful glowing effect. Also, enjoy this original music by Hannah McFarland. It's so beautiful. I often forget to say that these pieces are available for sale. If you're ever interested in an original, including this one, please see the link at the end of the video or in the about section of this video. Now this is a piece of UART paper, 400 grit, that I have already prepared and taped up to my board. And these are the acrylic inks made by Daylar Rowney. The colors are that first one was Indian yellow. This one is the red one. I'm reading it as I'm doing this is crimson. And the pink one, the bright like fluorescent pink, is called fluorescent pink. It also says rose fluorescent. So there's a couple of names on that one. Anyway, I use these neat little trays here just to put my inks in. It's just kind of nice and convenient. But I use a combination of inks rather than just one color because I like the way they blend with each other. They make some surprising effects sometimes. And here I am actually putting them in the little container. I really just did one dropper full of each color, but I did go back and add more of the pink because I was kind of heavy-handed on the pink. Now I'll just talk as I'm doing this. What I did on the UART paper is I'm going to be using alcohol. You can use alcohol or water with this. Alcohol just dries faster and sometimes it makes a more of a neat dripping effect. But I've done it a combination of ways where I actually just dip my brush in the alcohol and then in the acrylic inks and just paint on the UART paper. Today I am going to be doing it demonstrating a way I've never done it this way before. And I like it actually both ways. What I'm going to do is I'm actually going to brush the alcohol onto the UART paper, almost just like if you're familiar with watercolor painting, almost like a wet-on-wet approach. So you're just going to wet the whole surface. So here's the alcohol. And it's just regular alcohol. You can buy it at grocery store. And I have just a little container to put it in. And I like to have some paper towels handy just to wipe my brush off. I have seen some neat videos and things where people have actually used like vodka alcohol, also white wine. So obviously just about anything will do. I love this real bristly kind of old brush. It just kind of gives some neat effects with its texture that it has. So now I'm just going to start brushing the alcohol on the paper. I was a little heavy-handed with the alcohol. I'm kind of heavy-handed when I'm using wet mediums and things. But I'm just, I'm not being super fussy with it. I'm just kind of brushing it here, there and everywhere, trying to get a pretty good application. And it worked well, except for the fact that because I added a lot and a lot of the acrylic inks, the UART paper will kind of buck a little bit. And it did. I was able to kind of retape it and push it back down to get it to work. But it was a little buckly when I went to apply my first layers of pastel. I did miss that nice flat surface, but you know, I made it work. So that's just a warning. If you do this technique, make sure you tape your paper down pretty good. Also, okay, here we go. This is the pink. Now you'll see what I mean. Now just add a little bit of that yellow. Look how it turns that golden orange. Now add a little bit of red. I end up using mostly the pink and the yellow, just because I love that. It reminds me of an underpainting I do with a golden fluid acrylics. It's a color called Quinacridone Gold. And it's just this orangy, pinkish gold color that I really am able to emulate by using these acrylic inks. As you can see, I'm not being fussy about this. I'm just letting the drips happen. I did end up putting a little bit more alcohol on the bottom because it had already dried a little bit by the time I got to it. But basically, you can see how that interesting design is happening. And what I love about this technique is it keeps that luminescent quality. The UR paper is already kind of light, you know, just like a nice pale beige color. But if you were to put acrylic paint or anything other than these acrylic inks or watercolor, it really decreases the luminescence of that glow. You get kind of still seeing the paper behind it. Also, another advantage to using watercolor or acrylic inks is that you're not taking up any of the tooth of the pastel paper. So it's a great way to do an underpainting and not really lose the ability to get more layers down. So it's really kind of neat. That is also, you can do this with pastels as well. Sometimes I'll use some harder pastels and then I'll just brush on a layer of alcohol. And it sort of gives you a little more layering ability. But it still takes up a little bit of the grit of the paper, not as much as if you didn't put the alcohol down. But here I'm just adding a little bit more of that pink. I just wanted to get it, you know, in different areas. And as you can see, it's very forgiving. You can just keep applying alcohol all you want. Other than it buckling a little bit, you won't have any problem with that. But I love the little spontaneous effect of how it just kind of bleeds into making its own design. A lot of those drips and things disappear as it dries. It does dry a little bit lighter, so you know. Here are the pastels that I had pre-chosen. I knew my subject matter was a poppy field. I knew it was going to have a lot of those cool greens. And I just got a big variety of these oranges and reds, peachy colors. Now I'm just using a pastel pencil here. It's such a general sketch. I really don't need much other than the kind of the little hill horizon line, a few of the trees. And also I block in a few of the poppies. And then I just get to work after that. Now as I typically do, I'm getting in my darks. And really the darkest thing in this particular painting is going to be those trees. Most things, if they're vertical, they're going to be darker than things that are flat, like the grasses. And of course the sky is going to be lighter. So I'm just dotting in and getting in a general idea. Try not to get too fussy with this. I also wanted to go ahead and get in kind of a layering, almost like a blanket of some of those pastels. Even though I've got that nice orangey glow underneath, I wanted to get a little bit more of that red glow. Because the poppies, as they recede in the distance, they almost become one. And then they start to separate, like I'm doing now, as they move closer to the viewer. So that's just kind of my concept of getting perspective right. Now I'm just blocking in a few of these poppies. I didn't want to have them so huge. I just kind of wanted to lead the eye in with some of the larger ones kind of coming in the front. Just trying to get a nice decent little arrangement here, not having anything too lined up in a row. Having it more spontaneous, like things really do in nature. Now I know those background, the hills in the background, are going to be a cooler and lighter in value green. So I'm going ahead and establishing some of my values. I know some of those trees in the distance, they're going to cool off a little bit. And the trees, as they get closer, will be darker in value and warmer in color, more of a warm green rather than a cool green. I did eventually end up breaking, that line of trees was a little bit too straight going back. So I break it up a little bit by the end of the painting. But again, I'm just getting in basic shapes, generalities, not getting too fussy, and working big to small, less detail to more detail. And just continue to enjoy this and I'll add some more commentary soon. I will mention here that this is one of the areas where I had a little bit of a problem with the buckling of the paper. Notice that my purples that I kind of added up at the top, see how they're kind of splotchy. The paper was was a little bit warped. And so I was having a hard time filling in those areas. So typically I would just use a pastel to blend them. But I was still having a little trouble. So I end up using a piece of pipe foam insulation that I often use as a blending tool. And it worked out great just to blend the sky. And you know, it kind of worked out well anyway because the sky is not the main focus of this or those distant hills, it's going to be more of those poppies. So sometimes I'll leave a sky a little bit chunky if it's going to be the focus or textured. But sometimes I will blend it in if I need it to recede. And in this case I did anyway. Here you may notice that I've been adding some dark pastel kind of around the poppies and kind of making a trail going back. I think I've been in some of my past paintings. I've done this technique but I decided to be a little more light-handed with it today. I didn't want it to appear so dark. I really wanted this painting to have that luminescence and not cover up all of that beautiful gold that was achieved by using the acrylic inks. So I'm being purposeful in trying to keep a light hand and allow that beautiful underpainting to show through. Here's another instant in just a second where I decide to use the pipe foam insulation again. I thought the darks, I thought they could use a little blending. They looked a little too chunky, a little too much texture. And I just kind of wanted this to have more of a soft feel. So I'm just using kind of the corner of it just to kind of blend around the flowers. And notice I'm keeping my strokes pretty directional. Almost like everything's reaching from the bottom left up to the right. And often you know paintings you can achieve that effect by how you how you lay your strokes down. And so I was purposeful in trying to make them look like they were kind of going up and then back around into the back of that field. And again here I'm just laying down a few more of those reds. You know there's going to be a blanket of those poppies in the background. So I'm just kind of strategically putting in some of the reds in more horizontal bands. And then as they start to get a little closer they start to become identifiable as a poppy. Pardon my my phone there. But so you do need to start making them more recognizable. And then of course gradually they're going to get bigger as they get to the front. And of course keep them spontaneous. Don't have them all in a row or or two even anywhere. They should still have that beautiful harmony. I always think of it like music. There's order in their structure but there's randomness too. You know so anyway that all that kind of comes in time as you work. I'm still getting better at it myself. Now I'm actually starting to get in some of the poppy shapes. I I know many of them are going to be darker. They're definitely darker in the center and and kind of coming out into the petals. But I'm still being careful so as not to cover up all of that beautiful golden glow underneath everywhere. You know I'm leaving some of that showing. And the poppies they're interesting. You you want them to appear as poppies. But they don't have to be perfect either. You want to get the general shape of the poppy. I use the sides of the pastel. I'm not really drawing anything. I'm shaping them. And also too we don't want them to have all of the same direction. Even though many of them are kind of reaching like I said up towards the the sky and the right. Some of them should be kind of whimsical and have their own little personality be and be looking a different way. I think of them as having faces. I know it's so beautiful to me how everything in nature seems to reach to the heavens. And you know how trees grow and reach upward and flowers grow and reach upward. And it's like everything is just praising the Lord. I just love that. So you know I kind of emulate that when I work. I try to portray that sense of everything praising the Lord. So if you've been on my channel long you know I I'm just I can't help it. I just have to share how much I love my Lord and Savior. But many of you who even don't share the same beliefs are very kind and understanding. And I appreciate that very much. So just more poppies as you can see. I'm trying to give a blanket of poppies but keep them spontaneous at the same time. Here I felt like I needed to kind of reestablish that the darkness there. A little bit of the the roots of the flowers. And so I just kind of worked around a little bit with a new pastel and a pastel that was more of a cool darker green. Because that's what's going to happen down in the shadows. Colors are going to cool off because they're in the shadows. They're not going to be as warm with the sun shining on them. So again just kind of reestablishing my little my little trail that kind of leads the eye back. Here I wanted to point out that I realized I needed some darker poppies that maybe were just poppies that hadn't bloomed yet or they're just down deeper in the grasses. And it was is going to help give a sense of depth to those grasses. And these right now don't appear to be rooted because they're kind of floating right now. So a technique I'm going to use to make them look more like they're in the grasses is of course to add stems and more grasses on top. But using a little bit of I probably had enough tooth in this case here. But I went ahead and added a little bit you'll see in just a minute of the Blair workable fixative technique that I learned from Karen Margolis years ago. And it's a wonderful technique for being able to get a little bit more tooth to your paper. And it also darkens up the area you spray. Which in this case I kind of wanted it to darken up a little bit. I'm backed up here because I didn't want to get the spray on my camera. But now you can kind of see how I just sprayed it. I kind of let those little spots form on purpose. It gives kind of an artistic look. Of course it's dry right now when I'm working. But it allows you to kind of just glaze your pastel over top without it showing individual lines. And that's kind of what you want to do here. You want to make those flowers look like they're buried. And so this workable fixative helps with getting that idea or that appearance. Now these are harder pastels that I use for little little thin wispy grasses. And you want a lot of times you can just twirl it. You don't want to do all straight lines or all lines going in the same direction. That's not what happens in nature. They do randomly go with the wind. And you know sometimes something will be in the way. So just having that same spontaneity that you did in the flowers you want to have in the grasses as well. Now this is real time. And I'm leaving the audio on. Usually I have to turn the audio off on the video clips because I have music playing in the background that I play on Pandora. I love to listen to just instrumental music, ethereal praise and worship music. And I can't share that music in my video on YouTube or I'll get a strike against me. So I have to share only music that has no copyright. But in this case I'm using the beautiful music by Hannah McFarland that is an original piece. So I've been able to play that. But now I had my music on Pandora turned down. So you can hear those nice little scratchy sounds. I shared this in our Facebook group, one video of me with the scratchy sounds. I love it and there's some people that it actually bothers them. So I'm sorry if this bothers you. But I don't know. I just love that. That's very cool to me. Now here I wanted to point out that I'm using a little bit of this purple. It's kind of like a medium value purple. And just I am being so delicate with my touch here. There is still some of that workable fixative. Purples are great for shadows and it's just kind of cooling off and just adding a little color variety down in the roots of those flowers. I don't want to overdo it but just I love adding that little bit of purple here and there. All right so I'm speeding up this last little portion of the painting here. I hope you learned a lot. I really just had a wonderful time painting today. Had so much going on in my life. Oh my gosh for the past few years that I just truly cherish and appreciate when I get just a couple of hours in my day to paint, turn on the music and just enjoy you know the process of creation. I think it's so beautiful that God says we're created in his image and I think there's so much more to that than physical and I just love being able to create, being able to look at the beautiful earth that we have and just praise God for his beauty that he's given us and try to copy it as well. That's what we're doing right? He's the only original artist and we're just copycats loving his original work. So I hope you guys enjoyed this video. Again this original painting is available for sale. I always forget to say that and I'm not real good at marketing my work but if you would like to inquire about it I will have a link. You can click at the end of this video and also as always you can just get in touch with me on my website susanjankinsfineart.com. You can send me a message on Facebook if you're a group and just you know feel free to reach out to me. Please comment and share this video if you like and as always happy happy painting.