 Welcome my friends to Monet Cafe. I'm artist Susan Jenkins and today I'm bringing you a tutorial of a favorite subject of mine. This is a painting of a cow that I love that lives in a field next to my house named Oreo. She's precious. I think she'd come to live with me. So join me now as I give a little intro here and then we'll get started with the lesson. Hello art family. I am here again if you've been following my latest videos in my parent basement while I help my mom through her cancer treatments and I have set up my little temporary studio which is working out great and I thought I'd make a video of this latest painting that I did. As you can see right here behind me it's a cow painting and it's of a cow that I've grown to love that I've named Oreo. She lives next door to my property and not my cow. I wish she was my cow. I think she would actually come live with me. She's so sweet. But anyway so I have this great little photo of her and it's at a time of day that I call the golden hour. It's just that beautiful time when the sun sets right before it sets and it casts a golden light over everything and back behind my house in the field where the cows are and on the other side it's just magical and so I had this this neat photo where I kind of capture that light and I loved the contrast of the warm and the cool where the light was hitting her on this side and then the coolness of the light on the other side. So that was what motivated me or inspired me to do this painting and I named her Oreo because she's got this one black patch around her eye like Oreo cookie and I first I really wanted it to be I thought man I wish I had to take in the picture where it was that side of her face but it was actually kind of okay because I captured just a little bit of her little black patch just to identify her as Oreo. So anyway I'm gonna be doing this little video where I create a very loose and impressionistic painting and I'm going to go through the steps of how to do that. I know you guys are asking a whole lot about keeping it loose and exaggerating color and keeping a painterly style so that's gonna be my motivation for this video. These are the pastels toward the after effects of the painting. I started out with a lot less than this but gradually added. I realized some things weren't as dark in value as I needed or some things weren't as light in value as I needed so so that's the aftermath but anyway join me in this video and I'm gonna probably do a lot of real time and instruction but speed it up in parts too. I can't remember how long it took me to paint this probably probably less than two hours but anyway so I hope you enjoy and I hope you learn something and here we go. For this particular painting I used a full sheet a 9 by 12 sheet of UART sanded paper. This pad comes in a pack of 10 sheets and it's a 400 grit that I used. As you can see here one of these they come in different sizes but they also come in different grades or grits as well and if you're not familiar with sanded paper they truly are the best way to get vibrant color and a lot of layers with pastels. I also used you're gonna see in the beginning of this video ink tents blocks they're made by Derwent and they're awesome for getting an underpainting. I used a set of 72 I didn't use all 72 but they also come in smaller sets that are more affordable if you'd just like to try them. And I found this graphic and I really liked it because it'll give you a close-up view of how ink tents blocks behave. On the left side you'll see that's the dry application and then on the right is when you add water. Now this first one is showing ink tents blocks and the second one is showing another product I use for under paintings. It's the Neo Color 2 wax pastels and they have a similar ending result but they behave a little differently. And as you can see here when you add water they're just bold and beautiful. And by the way you can use these just to create an underpainting of a solid tone like this beautiful golden color. You don't have to use them the way that you'll see me use them in this video. Now it's time to get started and initially of course we need a good sketch especially when you're drawing animals or people. Animals actually have a lot of the same challenges that people's faces do in that they have unique things about them. I mean even my cow, I call her my cow Oreo, is she has differences in her face and her expressions and you know positioning of things so I want to get it right. What you're seeing me do there is I don't typically use like a grid system where some people will mark things like a grid on their paper and then a grid on their reference image. I just mark basically where the center is of it of the surface and the reference image horizontally and vertically. And then I can kind of use that as a general guide just to get more accurate placement as to where things go. And I highly recommend enhancing your drawing skills. I know that it's often said you don't have to know how to draw to paint and I disagree with that. I think good drawing skills is only going to make your painting better and your proportions, your perspective and also accuracy when it comes to things like this. You've got to get these things right. It makes for a strong foundation when you when you have good drawing skills. Okay so as you can see I'm just kind of I'm getting the placement of the eye. I know that once I get that in there accurately when I draw I use everything kind of proportionally. Once I get that eye in I kind of judge distances based on that and I've sped this up just a little bit. Oh and by the way I'm just using a little little pastel pencil. It's kind of like a sepia color. The great thing about using pastel pencils is it just kind of blends in with all of the other pastels and you can even brush it off if you need to or use a kneaded eraser to erase if you need to correct some things. And it is fine to do corrections. As a matter of fact I highly recommend correct before you commit. That's a good expression. I got to remember that. Don't just get lazy and say oh I've already got it in here let me just work with it. Take the time take the extra effort to go ahead and correct it because you're just going to get frustrated if you continue to draw and something's off. And it actually expands or increases the error if you get something off. The more you try to fix it it just keeps getting worse and worse. So take that time. I know that might sound tedious but your painting experience is going to be so much better when you get an accurate drawing in. Okay I'm going to speed this up even more because it's not supposed to be a drawing lesson but why not throw it in there if I can. Alright here we go. Finish the drawing. Now that the general sketch is complete it's time to apply the ink tense blocks and I really love using these. Like I said before you don't have to get the set of 72. They have smaller sets if you just like to try them but they are really excellent for doing an under painting. As I mentioned before you can use these just to tone your paper. And under painting is really exactly what the word implies. It's a painting underneath your painting. That can be something as simple like I said as toning your surface just one golden color just to get rid of all that either creamy or white color or it can be a little bit more. Or you could do like a warm under painting where you just use the warmer side of the color wheel to create a landscape painting or paintings such as this with all warm tones of different values. And in my case I'm using a variety of colors and I would say I'm using local color which means the color that isn't naturally in the scene. I'm not going to the compliment or the opposite side of the color wheel. However I'm exaggerating color. I love to do an under painting that has exaggerated color because often it inspires you to get a little bit more creative with color or bold with color and also it kind of peeks through if you don't cover the whole surface. So again take note of the colors that I'm using in this. Also take note that I'm using directional strokes. In essence I'm still kind of drawing with these. Even though I'm turning them on their sides and I'm using it on the broad side making bigger strokes I'm still my directional strokes are helping to give it more of an accurate drawing underneath the painting. And I will you'll see when I add the water I do the same thing with the water even though it really drips straight down for the most part. Something about making these strokes in the direction that they should go really seems to help me out. And it's just a good habit to learn to draw and paint that way. And also another good thing about an under painting with watercolor. Watercolor is actually one that takes up the tooth of the paper the least because it's really more liquid. But most under painting techniques that you do help to not fill up the tooth so quickly. Even though this is a type of harder medium and it's taking up a little of the tooth of the paper it will not be as much when I add the water and it drips off. I'll still have plenty of tooth or grit left to apply pastels. And if you know much about pastel painting if you've been painting a while you know that that's one of the benefits of the sanded surfaces is that we want the ability to lay colors on top of each other. That's where the magic happens okay. That often you just don't have that layering ability with flat surfaces. Alright I'm going to speed this up a little bit and you'll get an idea of how I'm doing the under painting and then I'm going to slow down and talk a little bit as I apply the water. Now it's time for some fun. We've got our drawing we've got our ink tent supplied and I've just got a cup of water some various size brushes. I like to use the largest brush possible it keeps things loose and I also keep when I do this I keep paper towels. I usually kind of fold a few of them just to have a little almost like a little thicker section of paper towels. Now the paint I mean sorry the water will kind of drip down so that's why I keep the paper towels because I blotted a lot to keep my water application not so flowing that it just runs like a waterfall down the whole painting. So basically all I'm doing is dipping in water. I've sped this up just a little bit and blotting it a little bit on the paper towel. I typically work top to bottom and again you see I am applying kind of the directional strokes. Directional what I mean by that is in the direction of like how the fur is going. If you look at it and you're like oh that's kind of sweeping down into the right or and again that's gonna get it's gonna help you get a good roadmap for your painting instead of just just washing it all over the place and having it be rather flat. This gives a little texture and dimension to it when you keep your strokes a bit more directional in this way. So now I'm applying usually top to bottom but in this case sometimes I can work in different areas but I am definitely when I work from a dark area and go to a light area I rinse it off like but there are just changed colors. I went from that deep rich purpley color to more of those blues. So I rinsed my brush out in the water pretty good and wiped it off. I didn't want to blend those colors. It's okay for some blending to happen but I purposely put these colors down for a reason so I don't want to undo my pre-planning. Now that little section I did is kind of that little patch of Oreo's eye and now I'm kind of gently working around that. Again do you see how I'm making the strokes in the direction of how her fur is is growing down her nose. I know you can't see the reference photo in this case really close up but let me go ahead and add that. I forgot I have a photo I can add right next to it. Let me do that now. I'll complete the under painting process here and then stay tuned because I'll be back when it's time to start with the soft pastels. Now that I'm done with the intense blocks you can see the crazy fun color. I do have to kind of redefine that eye. Sometimes details are hard with this process but now it's time to start with the pastel painting and like I said at the beginning of the video I started out with an okay size selection of pastels and I added more as I went along but I basically just looked at the reference photo and I chose colors that were more exaggerated than what you see in the photo. There's a tendency if you look in the photo to just think of that as being kind of gray maybe a bluish gray and maybe a few little light pale oranges but I wanted to truly exaggerate that and and you guys if you've been on my channel long you know I love color and I just think why not you know we're artists. Let's we're not trying to necessarily create reality we're creating our interpretation as we see it and that's the beauty of being able to create and you know I always say we're emulating our creator who created all things and goodness knows he got very creative of some of the creatures that I'm my goodness when I watch some of these shows like on nature shows and like sea creatures down in the depths at these vents where volcanoes are that things shouldn't even be able to live and grow and and they're just amazing and I could get carried away with that kind of stuff but you know since God has gotten so creative with things I think as his children he loves it when we stretch our artistic license and and have fun have fun with color and you know there are artistic rules to be followed that is just general good artistic rules and guidelines but some things can be interpreted according to what you see and that's the beautiful thing about the uniqueness of art and individuals who create art I know sometimes when we're learning we look at other people's styles and we emulate it and that's awesome because that's how we learn and grow but in time the more that you paint and emulate other artists styles as time goes on you'll find you have a style all your own so don't hesitate to copy somebody as your first learning that's what exactly what I did and just just keep at it the main way to get better is just to practice have fun every day and and try to paint every day if you can I know that's not always easy with our lives I'm certainly not able to do that but the more you can paint the better you're going to get but the other thing is to not judge yourself so harshly try to have fun get loose and realize that every painting you create even if it's something you don't like is just one step closer to becoming a better artist so anyway I'm talking philosophically here more than talking about what I'm doing what I'm doing here is I'm I'm getting my darks in if you look at the reference photo and you squint your eyes the darkest dark is really in that ear you know in the center of that ear is really dark now I know that her coat on the like her body on the right side is is black I know she's a black cow but there is some sunlight being cast on that so what I'm doing is I'm with pastels you typically work dark to light you put your darks down that are going to be like your base and then you layer lights on top of it so I know that her fur is black so I'm putting my darks down first and I know I'm going to layer some warmer colors on top of that and so that's why I'm kind of playing around with some colors on the side there I know that the middle part there is more is lighter it's lighter in value it's not as dark in value so that's why I'm putting a lighter value there I end up darkening this later that's a little bit too light I know later I realize I need to get a darker value down to be able to layer that sunlight on top of it and also keep in mind that while I love to punch up and exaggerate color and I know a lot of us love that when we paint it is a good strategy to realize that we need some neutrals in some places use your bolder colors and your more punchy colors as I like to call them in your greatest areas of interest where you feel the focal point is and then you can gradually fade out to more neutrals in other areas typically around the outer edges of a painting it's best to keep them more neutral and also perhaps a bit out of focus that allows the viewer's eyes to easily enter the painting without getting caught up on some sort of a detail right at the entryway of the painting alright so I am going to speed this up a little bit and I think you can kind of get an idea of what I'm doing here but stay tuned because sometimes when I see something that I feel I can need to explain I pop back in for more commentary alright enjoy this process now I'm going to begin to work on the eye which is an obvious important part to this painting I mean if even when you look at the photo I mean you just see that one eye and looking at you and you've definitely got to get it right and I fill around with this a bit I think I'm at one point I get it a little bit too large but I carve it down to get the right proportions by the end of the painting now for eyes there would be a tendency just to make that the main circular part of the eyeball all black and you can certainly lay down the darkest value I usually don't use black I'll use that's like a dark eggplant I believe it was Terry Ludwig eggplant color but there's a tendency to just keep it black just make it a black eye with like a white reflection but there's really a lot of colors reflecting in an eye and even if you don't see it you can kind of and I'm looking real closely at it now you can kind of exaggerate that and if you want to get a good idea of that take a look if you're interested in doing cow paintings or animal paintings in general take a look at the work of Rita Kirkman wow she's just amazing and check out her use of color in not only the eye but in the fur and she's just a master I've been looking at her work for years and and again that's like what I was saying before I have admired and emulated other artists in in my art endeavors and practice and notice here I'm adding green and you wouldn't think hmm green why would you add that it's a nice neutral and I felt like it was going to distinguish more between the ear and the fur I don't want them to kind of blend together there so often greens even though when I was first starting painting I thought how could you add a green to a face or a purple or you know or blues but when you do portrait work or even animal work often these these colors to create depth in a face or depth in the painting just create a lot more interest and make for a beautiful beautiful final result alright working on the eye a little bit more here so I'm gonna speed it up a bit again and enjoy the process and by the way I've been trying to keep these as real time as possible but where I'm at my parents house my my internet speed is okay but to upload a large video is a little difficult it's it almost was like the other day it didn't even want to process so I'm having to try to keep them under an hour and so forgive me for some of this speeding up but I think you're getting the idea as I slow down and describe things alright enjoy I'll be back this is the point where I finished up basically one session of sitting and working on pastel I think I worked probably just over an hour and I took a little break and I came back later and sometimes I just encourage you to walk away from your work and kind of get I'm showing my pastels again hello here I am I've added a few more now and like I showed at the beginning that's probably close to all that I used I might add it a couple more but again walk away from your work I'm holding up that little pretty teal color because another artist Vicky thank you recommended she says I think that would really make that painting pop also that's another crucial thing I have learned put my hair up there's too many times I've created a video and I have just not even been able to share it because I didn't put my hair up and you couldn't see the painting because of my crazy hair so it's time to get started here again I've had some time to think on it and process where I'm headed and I know I've got a good base I've got my basic values in basic shapes in and now it's time to indicate a little bit more detail with the the fur I guess you'd call it fur on a cow and some more directional strokes now I can lay down some lighter values on top of these darker values I've got a neat colorful underpainting of sorts with pastels on top of the underpainting of Derwent ink tents blocks and so now I'm checking my values I know I still want to keep those cooler temperatures because that shadowy side of her head where her eye actually is blocking the sunlight is still very cool in color temperature now there's a tendency here's one of my my big tips right here on how to get more painterly and also exaggerate color or steer away from the color that you see in the scene there is would be a tendency often I'm fixing my paper here so just listen while I fix it there's often a tendency to in those shadowy areas to paint gray like instead of the blue that I'm using to pick up a gray value and oh it's in the shadows it's going to be gray well yes you could definitely do that but if you want to exaggerate that color and create a more colorful dynamic artistic looking painting use colors that are the correct value but perhaps a bit more vibrant in color again in the areas that you want to draw interest to and you can dull or mute the colors when you get away from the focus but I definitely wanted the fur on the the ear to be a bit more recognizable notice how I'm using a purple not a gray even though it's kind of gray in real life and in the fur that I use on her head again instead of using grays instead of using whites I'm using colors that are the correct value but a bit more brilliant in color I hope that's understandable I knew I still needed a bit more purpley shadows in that area to to create that sense of depth because that's really where her head sinks in down like towards that middle part of her head I saw some in here where I needed some more cool purpley colors to make that area down in her furry seed and you know to see how I have that purple in my hand often I will try to use efficiency when I'm holding a particular pastel instead of picking up and putting down and picking up and putting down different colors often when I'm like that purple I've just used it in three different areas I just see where it might could be used and it keeps a consistency throughout the painting that way and also helps you to paint a little bit faster so alright so I hope that little tip helped and try to watch as I paint here even though I'm speeding it up and see how I layer the lighter values still not grays on top of the darker values that have already laid down to get that fur and those directional strokes and also of course I'm working on her muzzle as well alright so I'm going to speed this up and I hope you're learning for this last stretch of the painting process I'm slowing it back down to real time just so you can kind of more easily view how I'm making strokes and my color choices and here I noticed that there's actually a little bit of golden light casting across some of her pieces of hair that are sticking out more so and another thing constantly analyze your color temperature and and and try to get it in the correct places that's going to make a more a more believable painting and a more correct painting so value color temperature and it's okay to stay loose though I notice I have I have not gotten super detailed anywhere and by the end of this painting I still keep it rather chunky I mean especially around her muzzle I kind of purposely left her muzzle that's like the nose I'm assuming it's called that on a cow I know it is on a horse but I've purposely kept it even by the end not like super detail seeing all the little places where maybe little hairs were sticking out or where there was little freckles on her nose or because that would have created a blockade or a blockage to the eye entering the painting I wanted the eye to just kind of move up and around and see that eye and just have fun in that painting so it's okay not to have a lot of detail everywhere and that was that was kind of my goal and all these things just get better the more you do it the more you practice and I hope I've given you some tips to keep in mind again part of the goal of this video was to give you guys some suggestions on how to create more painterly impressionistic style a more loose style and also to be able to work on color temperature and more dynamic color though enjoy this real-time process and please be sure to make sure you listen at least to the end of this video because I have some announcements and information to give all right guys enjoy I'm wrapping up the painting at this point and this was a truly enjoyable painting for me probably because I just love this cow so much and I love animals and nature so much anyway and one last thing I have to do here is sign it and it's a little odd for me or strange I find I'm a lefty I often paint with my right hand if it's more convenient but I there started to sign my name I have a hard time signing my name sometimes because when I write I have that weird lefty habit of turning my hand upside down so I have to kind of get in awkward position sometimes to sign my that's why I just use my initials I really don't like signing my name and it's just it's just easier so anyway I hope you guys enjoyed this also to my announcement is I hope you guys know that I have a patreon page and I'm really enjoying the communication with my patrons I only have one tier it's $5 a month and it is really a benefit to me at this time you know if you've known my channel long I like to give it everything for free I never like to have anybody give to me I'd rather be the giver but I will say that this patreon page has has financially blessed me at a time in my life that it's it's a really come at a good time so I really appreciate that every little bit helps and I do have a special drawing here's my announcement I'm about to get to a hundred patrons and when I do I'm having a drawing and the winning patron will win an original painting of mine a copy of my book The Mountain Queen I have a children's book I wrote it's on Amazon if anyone's interested The Mountain Queen it's a beautiful story of hope and love I call it an eternal love story and also that winner will get a $50 Dick Blick gift card so if you haven't become a patron and you would like to for $5 a month and you can cancel at any time then that would be awesome here is the link to my patreon page if you'd like to join and also I'm just loving all of the communication with everyone in our Monet cafe art group on Facebook so you can join us there totally for free and learn from a lot of other artists so anyway guys happy painting you guys are blessing to me and I hope you learned a lot until next time happy painting