 Welcome to Monet Café in a series of lessons I'm calling Down on the Farm. In this lesson I'll be doing some pastel sketching of this adorable pig. What should I name him? Like George. And this is part two. I have a part one of an adorable duck. I'll have a link to that in the about section of this video. Now this adorable pig photo is from Unsplash.com by Pascal de Bruner. Also, with the exception of speeding up a little bit of the sketch at the beginning of this lesson, the rest of the lesson is all real time. So just like part one in this series, it's a great lesson for beginners. And if you haven't subscribed to this channel, I hope you will. We have a lot of fun. Also, click that bell icon to be notified of future videos. For your convenience, I've already arranged an album called The Farm in my Unsplash.com account. You can find me at Susan Jenkins Artist on there. And you can access my album and use any of these images that I thought were really beautiful farm related images. You can find a link to that album in the about section of this video. Now let's talk about these supplies. For the first three paintings in this series, I'm using Strathmore toned gray paper. I really do like the fact that I can not only do charcoal sketches on this paper, but I can also do pastel painting. We think we have to use sanded papers, but we really can get some decent results on regular drawing paper. I like the neutral color of this rather than white drawing paper. The majority of the pastels I'll be using for this pastel sketch are Prismacolor new pastels. I like them. They're a little harder. They go on quite well on this paper. And I do use a few other pastels, but I'll try to point them out as I paint. Now I'm getting started with my adorable piggy George. I named him on my iPad. And by the way, there will be a link to this reference image in the description of this video if you'd like to use this same image or your own piggy photo. So I am just using a charcoal pencil here on my gray tone Strathmore paper. I believe I marked off an 8 by 10 area and I cropped my image. If you see the reference photo at the beginning of this video, you can see it's a wide format. I actually would really like to do a more serious painting, not just a pastel sketch of the entire image. It was really lovely with the other pig in the background and the shadows coming forward. So again, this is a 8 by 10 cropped image. And I often, I think I mentioned this in the last duck tutorial, that I often like to keep my proportions of my image and my painting surface the same. Kind of you can see what I'm doing here. I know that the halfway point on the image will be the same place as the halfway point on my paper that I'm drawing on. So it makes it for a real easy gauge for kind of measuring very quickly. And the reason I call this pastel sketching is because of course I'm sketching out the general image which I would most likely do for a more serious pastel piece. But we're keeping the marks very gestural and even when I get to the painting phase the marks will be more lively and it has a sketchy feel to it. Also because it's on drawing paper and we're doing them a bit more quickly which is kind of a little bit more like sketching and just having fun. I often get feedback from those in the Monet Cafe art group on Facebook and in my Patreon group of artists who say you just sometimes get out of the groove, you feel like you've lost your mojo or you know you're just not feeling the artistic vibes. And often doing some fun sketching and these little pastel sketches are great for getting out of that rut. And also you're not wasting a lot of money with expensive pastel papers. I do recommend to, you see how I'm holding my pencil, the results of your strokes will be more sketchy. Occasionally you'll see me grab it more like you were writing to get a more specific area or to get some more control but mostly giving these little, I've sped this up only slightly for the sketch part but mostly giving these little gestural marks and keeping it very very loose. This is not going to be the type of painting where we have rigid lines. I'm just giving a little shading here and this is a good segue to talk about the fact that this pig is what's called backlighting. You notice the sun is behind him. You can see the sun really shining brilliantly on the right ear, not his right or right. And so what results is the pig is pretty much in shadow. It's going to be a pretty dark image. I mean our brains tell us, oh we need to grab a white, he looks like a white pig. But this is back to that. Does anybody remember that famous thing on the internet that said is it a blue dress or is it a white dress? And all it was was a dress that was in some poor lighting and people were interpreting things based on the lighting and really if it's in, if this pig is in a backlighting situation like this, sure he is still a white pig if you shine the light on him but in this particular scenario he's darker. The values are going to be darker and you'll see me as I paint I purposely make some of the values cooler in certain areas because whenever anything's in a shadow we can use cooler temperatures. I often like to say if you are in a shadow area under a tree for example you're going to be cooler because the sun is not shining directly on you so it's a neat little way to remember that you can break out your artistic license and often cool things off a bit when they're in shadow. Good colors for that are blues and purples. So I did kind of accidentally get my pig a little bit over too far to the right side. I don't know where I'm going right now. And then if I was doing something more seriously I would probably measure a little bit more but once again this is pastel sketching. We're having fun. It's okay if he's moved over a little bit. I did realize I wanted to change his eye. His eyes were really far, they're wide, they were like almost right underneath that little part of his ear right there. And so these are little things you can just kind of notice as you're sketching. I also love being an artist how you really become a student of nature, of landscapes, of animals and you really learn a lot about how things really look. I was sketching my dog one time that's a Boston Terrier and I realized, oh my goodness Jackson I didn't know your ears were that big. His ears are almost as big as a rabbit's, I mean very big ears. That's just kind of common for that breed. Now I'm just sketching in his little legs were just kind of interestingly shaped and he's got one kind of, he's got his two front legs that I'm doing right now. I'm not even worried about getting his hooves specifically right now. And then he had a little back leg, just kind of a little gestural mark to the back. Obviously it's going to be smaller in the back because it's further away. And then he's just got a little bit of his body showing because this is one of those really kind of neat front views that you see with dogs and with animals like that. Now I noticed I didn't have his snout big enough. That's one of the neat things to pardon my hair or head getting in the way. Who else has those crazy gray hairs, you just can't tame them down, they're everywhere. But anyway, so another good thing about working with charcoal or willow charcoal, this is a charcoal pencil but either of them is you can erase them and you can kind of reconfigure some stuff. I think sometimes the lines like I'm doing here rather than getting each line specific lens to that painterly sketchy feel. So I'm just kind of getting some of the general ideas. Also right now I'm getting a little bit more of that gestural feel. His leg had a little bit more of a shape that was kind of cocked to the back there. So if you decide to do some pastel sketching, I do recommend that you keep it loose, gestural, and fun. And hey, whatever, if it doesn't come out perfect, that's okay. But like I always say, get you a cup of coffee, I like to put on some music and have my essential oils brewing for a nice ambiance. I always say that it's about the experience as much as, if not sometimes for me, more than the final material product at the end. We can truly enjoy this rather than feel like, we've got to have this finished piece that we show the world on social media. Just enjoy being an artist and enjoy the fact that you get to create and have fun. As you can see, I've just grabbed here a middle value gray and now I just got a little bit of a darker gray. And what I'm doing is what I actually do for regular paintings is I'm just getting in a little value study. I'm kind of analyzing where my darker darks are. You can see that his ears are really dark. And they also have some light shining through them because the ears are thinner. But later I'll establish that with some pink tones. But you wanna go ahead and get those values in. We can get some layering. We talk a lot in pastel painting about how one of the neat things we can do with pastels is we can layer them to get different color interactions. And typically with pastel painting, we layer dark to light. It's pretty similar in oil painting and acrylic painting. It's the opposite with watercolor. So I'm just using this darker pastel to get in some of the areas that I see are the darkest values. The ears, that little shadow area under his nose, and his legs, especially down towards the bottoms are dark. And so what this does is this very quickly establishes some of the basic values. If you hear some crazy noises while I'm doing this voiceover, it's because I'm in the midst of a tropical storm. I'm still staying at my parents' house. God, leave that wind is really kicking up. I'm staying at my parents. I'm a little scared. I'm staying at my parents' home still after my mom passed away, still here with my dad. We're just all helping each other through this. And I'm trying to make life a bit more, I don't know, easier for him to manage with some things, just practical. So anyway, it's really kind of crazy weather outside right now. But now what I'm doing is I'm still doing a value study, even though I've gone away from gray tones. But I'm using this pink to get in some of those other values that may not be quite as dark as that dark value that I had put in earlier. And now I'm using a little bit of a lighter pink to get in the light portions of the snout. And I do think I even darken this up a little bit later. But this gives me, once again, a good roadmap, a good guide as to some of these values, the basic structure of the pig and the basic shapes and some of the basic colors even getting started now. Do you remember when I mentioned about things in shadow being cooler? You remember the colors that I said are good to use when things are in shadow? That would be purples and blues. So in a minute, you're gonna see me actually get some purple. Well, there it is right there. Some purples underneath his chin or underneath his nose, that chin area, is darker and cooler in temperature. So I'm doing that under the shadowed area of the chin and in the shadowed area of the ears. And it really gives a believable feeling of something being more in the shadow than, for example, the upper part of his head. And it also gives a really neat fun color. So I often say that once you learn the rules of color and value, you can really get creative and have some fun and explore. And now I'm using a little bit of a warmer, pinky, kind of a peachy color. Remember how I said I was making the ears dark, but later I would come back and add some of that kind of fun color, like the sun is shining through his ears? Well, just like I said, the shadows are cooler, the sun is warmer. So that's why I went with a warmer, more of a peachy tone than a cooler pink tone for the sunlight coming through the ears. And once again, this face is in shadow, but it's not quite as dark as the shadowy area underneath the snout. So that's why I'm using this blue that is a little bit lighter in value. And it doesn't feel quite as dark as the area underneath the snout area. I'm going ahead and getting in a little bit of, I call these color notes or value notes. I sometimes just make little marks. It may even be a little light in value, but it gives me an idea of where some of the lighter values are. Once again, just playing around, making a little roadmap, and having some fun. This is, I believe, a black. I don't often use black in my paintings, but often I like to limit myself as with this little palette of new pastels you saw at the beginning. And I find there's a wonderful thing about limiting yourself is that it allows you or forces you to use color combinations. You sometimes, you get in the habits of using the same colors all the time. Now remember I said he had these little beady, squinty eyes. They also have a little gesture to them. They're kind of angled down, and he has like a little eyelash coming over them. So I'll be establishing his eyes. But once again, you have to really examine your subject matter when you do things like this, especially portraits of animals and people. I've so often heard new budding artists say that, wow, I'm really looking at the world differently and seeing more. So being an artist means becoming a student of our beautiful creation. And I think that's another element we should appreciate as artists. We really learn to see the world rather than how so many people seem to be more like just passing through. And with so much in the computer world today, with television and computers, we have so many things that try to steal our joy of experiencing creation in the raw. I like to say that because I mean we can watch a nature program on TV. We can enjoy someone else's nature photography on social media. But there's nothing like getting out there and experiencing it yourself and smelling the air and feeling the grass under your toes. So I really love that part of being an artist. Now you can see I'm working on the background here. I'm keeping that real sketchy quality. But right now I'm giving my lightest light. Remember how I said the sun was kind of shiny behind that one side of his ear? So I think even just these marks, if I just kind of kept this style for the rest of the painting, it's really kind of fun. That could have, you know, finish out the background a little bit more of the pig and that could have been my pastel sketch. So fun and expressive is the feeling and the goal here. Now during this month of the farm theme, I do have some more, I call them serious pieces. I shouldn't cut more detailed pieces or pieces that are not quite so sketchy. And I already have two of them complete. So this month in the farm theme, I will do a little bit of a combination of some fun whimsical like this and some more landscape paintings on some sanded paper. But I do think that this type of pastel sketching and especially the real time that I'm providing in these first two, the duck and this one is really great for beginners. I hope you're getting a lot of content, information and instruction that will help you. Also too, if you're in the Monet Café Art Group on Facebook, feel free to share your recreations of this, tag me. I'm on Facebook. I'm the art of Susan Jenkins. That's my page name. By the way, go find me on Facebook, that page and follow me. I would love that if you share on Instagram. I love that you guys have been sharing, I have been tagging me on Instagram and I'm getting to see what you're doing from these lessons. I love it. So find me on Instagram at Susan Jenkins Artist and then I will get a little notification and I'll get to see what you've done. And I always love that. That's one thing I love about my Patreon Group. By the way, if you want to support this channel, the Monet Café YouTube channel, if you support me on Patreon for $5 a month, it really does help me to keep these free videos coming. For others, there are so many people, I get your beautiful messages about how you maybe live in a country where you're limited in instruction that you can receive. Many people are limited in their financial situation of lessons they can receive. So I love the fact that I am bringing this channel with so many free lessons. I have hundreds of videos on this particular channel here. I don't know, am I up to 400 videos? Probably. So your support on the Patreon channel not only helps me just to financially keep things going. I did lose my other job because of COVID. So this is my only source of income. But it also helps me to get better equipment and of course the supplies for these tutorials. But what I love about the Patreon Group is not only are you supporting this channel, you're also going to get some extra goodies. My patrons, we're just such a beautiful group and I love the artist in my Patreon Group. I get to see your work because I have a homework album just for my patrons and my patrons share their results from these lessons in the homework album. So it's a lot of fun and I give some prizes and I have extra instruction also to my patrons. So sometimes with these lessons, they'll get a little extra content. I've got one lesson coming up soon where I'm going to give them a little lesson in cropping a reference image and also how to alter it to make it more painterly before you begin a painting, things like that. So and my patrons are just wonderful, beautiful people. So I always want to give a shout out to them. Now you see this little purple that I'm adding. Remember how I set up maybe dark in that nose a little bit? I'm just going in and adding fun color now. Remember me mentioning about getting the values and a basic color foundation in and then I could get fun. And yes, I did put green in the face. I actually am seeing some green in the photo. We can fine tune our eyes to see little subtleties of color in photographs that you don't see on the surface. But when you really learn to examine these things, that's how you can get expressive with color. I even have on my Patreon page. Sometimes I like to give you guys little color tests. And some of these there's one. I'll go ahead and tell you guys. There's a little app you can get. I think it's Android and iPhone. It's called I love Hugh, H-U-W. Not I love you. I love Hugh and it's a game. You can play that really helps you to fine tune your visual acuity to see color better. So so that's really just some neat little things you can do to become better as an artist. OK, so I'm really got a crazy colorful pig going here. But it seemed like a lot of you guys like this. I put him on Instagram and everyone is like, oh, my gosh, I love this crazy pig. So and also to right now, it looks like his that shadow under his snout. It looks like that's his mouth. That's just a shadow. I go in and it looks like he's going, hey, his mouth open. But I kind of blend that in, make it more like a shadow and add the little he's got a little chin under there under the nose that I'll add later. I'm getting a little bit more of that brightness around his ear where the sun is. Once again, I really want to do a piece that I spend more time on doing the whole image. I really liked this reference image. It was great. But check out that farm album I created on unsplash.com. I pulled out, I don't know how a lot of photos of some really fun farm animals and some beautiful farm landscapes as well. So so this is really fun. Now, notice, too, I am getting layering on regular drawing paper. I really love these new pastels by Prismacolor. I wanted to give a little bit of more indication of the shape to that eye. Remember how he said he kind of had like a little eyelash or a little area of highlight above his eye? So I'm just kind of fine tuning those things. Some of the areas in his ear were a little darker than I had them. I added more brilliant pink or brilliant and darker pink. And I'm just looking often when I have a color in my hand, I'm looking to see where could I use that value and that color somewhere else in the painting to give some color harmony. See how I added even some of it down in the ground that connects the painting so you don't have a feeling of segmented color throughout the piece. I'm using a lighter pastel now still once again, how I'm getting the layering to go in and give a little bit more detail, you might say, or indication of where some of the lighter areas of the pig are. I think I missed a little footage, but can you see here how I added that little highlight right over the eye? It's just a little gestural mark that really gives that feeling of the shape of his eyes and also that he has like a little lash that might be catching some of the sunlight filtering around him. Here's the painting at this stage. And I did go back and add even more expressive marks and had a little fun. So here's my final crazy pig George. I hope you enjoyed that and learned a lot. I also have another painting tutorial on the way that is also, yes, this was also done on the Strathmore gray tones paper. This one should be a lot of fun. All right, guys, I really am thankful that you joined me today for this lesson. So be blessed and happy painting.