 Welcome to Monet cafe. I'm artist Susan Jenkins and we are continuing in three months. I will be painting this Majestic cypress tree. I love cypress trees I'll be sharing an underpainting technique that I love using acrylic inks on sanded pastel paper And if you haven't subscribed to this channel yet I would love for you to and you can just hit that little bell icon to be notified of future videos If you'd like to become a patron it helps to support this channel plus you get extra content My patrons are awesome. You can find it at patreon.com slash Susan Jenkins. Hello and welcome to Monet cafe. I'm artist Susan Jenkins I'm glad you're here because we are continuing in the Tree month theme and this is the second in the tree tutorials The first one was called one two three you can paint a tree and many of you really like that video I got some great feedback some comments. I love it when you give me comments on these videos It helps me know what you like and what more I can do for you So that was a great beginner tutorial and today's tree is going to be a cypress tree Cypress trees are some of my favorite trees. I've lived in Florida most of my adult life and They're everywhere and they're specifically in marshes. I think they're kind of romantic and magical So for today's tree painting last time I used unsanded paper just some gray drawing paper Pastels work beautifully on both, but many if you've done pastel painting very often or very much You know that sanded surfaces. Yes. I mean like sandpaper Are great for pastel painting because you get a lot of layering and building up of color and Mixing colors. Yes, you can mix colors on pastel surfaces. So this paper I'll be using today is called Fisher 400 the 400 stands for the grade or the grit very much like hard restore sandpaper Grades their surfaces. So I love this surface Some of you may know if you've been painting with pastels for long or I've heard of a paper called you are paper It's almost exactly like you are paper except it doesn't curl You are paper has this tendency to curl up, especially in humid climates. So Fisher 400 stays nice and flat It's also water friendly. So I am going to do I think that's what I'm gonna do a wet underpainting I might use acrylic inks or water color. You'll find out in just a second But I want it to look romantic colorful and magical. So let's get started I have a lovely reference image of some cypress trees a little grouping and I am just glad you're here. So let's get started and learn more about painting trees. Here we go. I Thought it would be nice to give you a little more information on this surface the Fisher 400 Surface that I'll be using today. The site is Fisher art paper comm now This is the manufacturer and they give a little information about them a few examples of paintings Which is rather nice, but they also have a section up top called videos And if you click the link up top on the website called videos, it takes you to four videos that gives little demonstrations I loved this little demonstration that shows the difference of a surface on the left kind of like a Kansan Surface unsanded paper and on the right is the Fisher 400 Can you see the dramatic difference? And of course like I've mentioned before the Fisher 400 takes water and wet mediums beautifully as well Now I buy my Fisher 400 paper the best price I have found is from a site called pro art panel So you click that section up top called Fisher 400 It takes you to an area where you can choose either the panels or the sheets and I order them by the sheets So I typically order I believe it is like a 16 by 20 and you can get Five sheets for $30. That's not too bad Now that may sound like a lot if you're not familiar with pastel papers But the great thing about this paper with some other pastel papers is that you can repurpose them If you don't like your painting you can wash it off now They do have a 12 by 16 paper sheets that you can get a 10 pack for $36. That's also a pretty good deal And here is the reference image from unsplash.com the photographer is Morgane Parade And what a pretty lady a French girl. She says I started out with a charcoal sketch And I'm gonna tell you why in a minute that it would have been a much better idea if I had done the sketch After I toned my surface. Okay, but I'll talk about that soon What I'm gonna do is I'm going to tone the surface with this gorgeous combination of acrylic inks I'm using fluorescent pink Indian yellow and purple Lake The Indian yellow and the fluorescent pink combined to make the most awesome beautiful golden Yellowy pink color. I'm gonna swirl it around in a minute so you can see I put two or three Droppers full of the Indian yellow and I think one dropper of the fluorescent pink and it just makes such a gorgeous color Now you don't have to have acrylic inks you can tone your surface actually with a pretty orange pastel And then just do a wash with alcohol. You could use watercolor. Whatever. Look at that gorgeous color. Isn't that beautiful? now I'm going to apply it with a sponge and I actually wish I'd used a natural sponge I grabbed this one really quickly. I realized also that I needed more water. I put it on Undiluted but not to worry what I did is I just grabbed a little spritzer bottle that I have with water in it I love to keep these near my easel. So here's the spritzer bottle I think I just Repurposed it from like a little body spray type of thing. It's the water smells good by the way But I just sprayed it with a nice even coat and then I continued now You can see as I'm applying here how much lighter More diluted the acrylic ink is as I'm applying it So these stages are just really loose and lovely anyway So don't freak out and feel like you have to get this real smooth application Now here's where I was saying do what I say not as I do don't Apply the charcoal pencil first because I found myself wrestling with this I was like oh wow on earth that I do that I'm having to be careful because the charcoal pencil is going to kind of bleed into that And I guess it wouldn't have mattered that much But it kind of took my sketch away a little bit But after I get done getting this on I'm going to go in with a little more of the fluorescent pink and I diluted it I sprayed a little water in it and I'm using a big brush to actually get me a Basic value in of the tree now. This isn't the darkest value It's going to be but what I'm trying to do is get a little bit of that shape I loved the shape of the tree now I'll share with you that this is more typically how I work Rather than getting a contour image in and if you want to know a little bit about the differences of that once again Go back to that one two three. You can paint a tree beginner video I'll have that as a clickable link at the end of this video So finish watching this one then just click that link. It'll take you right to that But in that video, I share three different methods for getting your form in one is the contour sketch Like I did at the beginning. That's probably my least favorite the unless I'm doing something that's real specific like a person or an animal or something with a lot of perspective or Buildings things you have to get accurate But with things like trees I prefer this method which is also in the video. I was talking about so I'm using my brush I'm getting in just some of the shapes and again. This is more of a value study. I'm just really just kind of keeping some of the Gesture of the tree. It had a lot of moss hanging down So I'm giving myself a little bit of a roadmap to know where to begin I knew the shadow or the reflection from the tree was about the same value And I knew I had some of the background trees that I wanted to go ahead and use this fluorescent pink to Kind of get an idea of where things are and then of course there's a reflection from these trees in the water You'll see me adding in a minute and I use the same color to get Just a little bit more of the energy of this painting. You'll see in a minute how I get a little fun With the sky as well So again, you do not have to have acrylic ink to do this. You could use watercolor. You could use watered-down acrylics So now's the fun. We're going to add purple Lake Undiluted. Okay. I want this to be very dark not with that sponge I was talking about before with my natural sponge. I love these sponges. I happen to live near Tarpon Springs, Florida I think they're like the sponge capital of the United States or something. They they harvest sponges And they have a lot of these little natural sponges So once again, this is undiluted to keep it dark the sponge This particular one has a random pattern as opposed to the first Sponge that was more like one you buy at the grocery store and this one doesn't leave a residue The first one it was leaving little bits of sponge on my paper because this is sanded paper. So if you use something That rubs off a lot. It's gonna pick up on those little sanded particles I'm trying here to capture the gesture of this tree in order to keep that energy I also wanted to keep that feeling Often Cypress trees in Florida here and a lot of places in Florida in the Panhandle in Alabama Will have the moss the Spanish moss hanging down and I think that's what gives it that romantic feel So you can you see how my strokes are trying to create some of that energy of the tree and here? I'm using a brush. It's a liner brush. It's kind of like a long thin brush And I'm just Lifting and letting the brush have some gestural marks to suggest the tree trunks also the Darkest values now I'm using the sponge again, and I'm pulling down where that reflection You can see I'm just making a shape of a reflection similar to what is in the reference photo And here I am darkening again the background trees now They're not going to be as dark as the main foreground tree because they're in the distance So I did add a little bit of water. You saw me spritzing it there I added even more water here because I wanted to capture It's kind of the reflection of the distant trees in the water and just a little bit of the motion of the water So can you see how loose and painterly this is and now this was fun? I decided to go ahead and add some of this purple lake It is diluted to give suggestions of some of the darker areas of the sky and I gave it that energy So I'm just brushing it in with this little sponge And do you see how that creates just such a nice loose painterly beginning to this now I was loving this so much I I had committed to create a painting more similar to the reference image But I really loved this golden color underneath now here are the pastels. I'll be using this is the Maggie Price Basic value set. It's a set by Terry Ludwig pastels. I love these pastels And I used I would say Really exclusively this set for this painting with the exception of I think I think maybe two pastels And I'll show you those so I'm trying to do more tutorials using just one set to show you that it can be done You don't have to have a million pastels. I'm pointing out some of the greens These are nice warm greens the ones that I pointed out before were more cool greens this set has some beautiful golden colors you can see some nice reds and I I used some of those coral colors as well Also, this set has a good selection of purples and some of you may know a lot of sets don't have very many purples It also has that awesome Terry Ludwig egg plant color that real dark color and now for the pastel Application believe it or not. I'm going to add more darks. I am going to use it's a very famous Terry Ludwig Dark called egg plant it appears black color and value is relative as to what's next to it But I rarely use black in my paintings. I feel like This color makes an excellent dark because it it really does still have a hint of purple in it Really deep purple. So I'm using this Terry Ludwig dark. I'm literally just looking at the shapes in the tree I'm not even thinking about really drawing or painting a tree. I'm just Emulating and reproducing the dark values and the shapes that I see often I find that when we are too focused on something being a tree Sometimes we draw what our brain thinks is a tree rather than what is really there So this reference image was already so lovely I didn't see any need to reinterpret it other than just being a little loose and free So I'm just you know kind of zoning out. I already have my form in and I'm just pulling those darks or adding those darks Where I'm seeing them and now I've sped this up a bit because I think you get the idea I'm just continuing to add the darks where I see them I'm looking at shapes when you can learn to see shapes and Reproduce them positive and negative shapes. It's really going to help you in getting believable And painterly artwork So I once again have to get not just the tree but the reflection typically with reflections You just kind of pull down the dark shapes and then usually I will blend them I use various tools for blending, but for this one, you'll see me right here I am using a little piece of pipe foam insulation. It is what you can get at a hardware store You can just cut it up into manageable sizes You can actually even wash them off and reuse them. So what I'm doing I'm just softening everything Blending the reflection and getting a little bit of value in the background. All right now I'm going to add another pastel color to those background trees Notice this dark is not as dark as the terry Ludwig That's because these trees are further away and values get lighter in the distance They're still going to be pretty dark, but this is just my initial layers I'm going to be adding colors on top of these colors. That's why we talk about Layering with soft pastels. We're not painting like a paint by number where we're filling in one color in each section That's the beauty of many different kinds of mediums but really with pastels those colors interacting with each other and Actually kind of mixing on the palette to create new and exciting color combinations just like a treat for the eyes and I've sped it up a little bit again here What we have to do every time we're doing something over water is remember to add that reflection So that's why I added that blue in the water underneath the background trees and now I'm blending it You see how that just kind of softens it and flattens out the water And I added a little bit of that dark in the foreground too You can see in the reference image the water is a little bit darker on those edges in the foreground Now I loved this kind of it was almost like a coral color And I'm gonna admit here I had about two to three different stages of this painting where I almost stopped but I really wanted to utilize a lot of the colors in this Maggie price set and Give a more of a full tutorial But I was loving the color combinations that were happening with these gorgeous oranges and Coral colors and so I'm blending a little bit in the sky here So you'll probably see or I'll probably mention some various stages where I'm like Oh, I think I'm gonna do this painting again and stop right there So you can use the same reference image and create multiple color palettes Especially if you come across with an image that you just love and I did just love this beautiful Cypress tree or grouping of cypress trees just so lovely of course you can see now I added a little bit of yellow to brighten up the sky. I loved the energy in the sky and We have to of course Emulate the sky colors and patterns in the water. So I'm using the same coral color and I'm looking at the reference photo really just for the values and Just kind of gradually giving some little horizontal strokes and also kind of carving in negatively I've switched to a darker version of this coral color And I'm just ever so lightly a really light touch getting in a little darker Values to the foreground of the water one thing. I knew was gonna make a difference in this painting was the use of Negative shapes even just that little mark. I added in the tree there. It's a teeny little mark and It's going to give some sense of depth and dimension to that tree when we can kind of see through some of the little Spaces now I'm adding a little bit of that golden color from the sky right there at the water's edge for those background trees and I saw in the reference image. There was that little Then line there and then there was also a little bit of a sheen to the water in the front I also added a little Negative shape there a sky hole. It's called in this case It would be a a tree hole because there's trees behind this main tree and you want to keep The colors and the values similar to what's actually behind the tree now I'm just the reference photo was a little bit Indiscriminate I had a hard time finding out or seeing where the edge of the water was meeting the base of the tree because it was So dark so I'm just kind of refreshing that a little bit so that I can do the same thing Eventually, there'll be a little like silver lining there at the base of the tree where the water meets the tree trunks Not yet. I'll do that kind of towards the end and now I'm going to speed things up a bit add some music and I will be back when I add some purple so don't go anywhere. Enjoy this process. I'm just doing more of the same here I'm actually reinforcing some of the darkest darks and Then I will start adding some more color and life to this painting Okay, I think I had left the painting overnight and this is the morning when I grabbed some coffee and in a minute You're gonna see probably my crazy bedhead hair. It's a great thing about being an artist. You can just wake up and go to work But you do have to hide your hair. So here are some of those purples. Did you really think I was gonna create a painting without using purple? Yes, I have done it but if you've followed me long, you know, I love the color purple and I just think it is absolutely so beautiful I think it's one of the most rare colors in nature And you may have noticed what I was mentioning early on is that this painting for me anyway had multiple stages where I really liked a color I seriously loved just the orange and red sky and Not turning it to be kind of a bluish purple, which I do very soon However, I wanted to be able to really give a good tutorial using a lot of color and also utilizing this Maggie price set so I Continue to work and build the color to be a little bit more like local color local color meaning the color that's actually in the reference image even though I almost always Exaggerate color and get a little creative anyway Even if I'm trying to create it a little bit more like the reference image and can you see here how the influence of this? background that was one of the Main points of this lesson was just showing this gorgeous underpainting using the acrylic inks With this beautiful golden color again, you can use other products to create this background You don't even have to do the different variations of values like I did you could just tone your surface like a golden type of color and start painting so it really does influence the final painting And it's more of what I was saying how the layering of color is what makes I think pastel so magical Also on a note that you may not know pastels is one of the most longest lasting Mediums that retains its color. It's a pure pigment. Basically, especially some of these softee the real soft pastels They have very little binder in them and that's why the color is For me and many people who love pastels the most vibrant and brilliant of all of the mediums It's like holding color in your fingers. That's another thing. I really like about it I know some people wear gloves if you have any type of allergic reactions to pastels Often people will wear a mask. I've never had any problem and I kind of like getting my hands dirty anyway And now I'm adding some of the cooler greens by cooler I mean they don't have as much yellow in them the greens I added before were a little bit more on the warm scale and that's one thing I do like about this Maggie price set it really has some great color selections and So the cooler colors I'm kind of squinting looking at the reference image and Basing it on where the shadowy areas are the shadowy leaf areas and so I'm just adding little shapes I'm not even thinking about leaves. They're really just shapes and you don't have to put in every shape you're just looking for areas that are interesting and just kind of scumbling along adding little shapes and textures here and there and That's something that I had to learn as a pastel artist or an artist in general is the Technique of not giving too much information when we're painting. We are not recreating things like a photograph That's what makes the difference between some paintings looking painterly and some paintings having more of photo realism Now I admire photo realism and I've had times in my life where I really enjoyed trying to create something very Realistically, but I lean more towards impressionism and I just love the beauty of that expressiveness So that's what we're trying to do when we're recreating as in this month's theme The trees and the subject matter of trees is we're trying to capture that essence of tree and Give our little spin or interpretation on things and for me the cypress tree has Such interesting little shapes with the way their branches and leaves come out and they kind of almost some of the Greenery the greenery leaf part is almost kind of sideways and a little bit more like a evergreen tree their leaves and branches actually do look like an evergreen tree, but they They do lose their leaves in the fall They become bare and I think they're beautiful without their leaves as well And I once again love the Spanish moss that often grows in them We had a cypress tree in the back of our home that flooded Hope cypress trees love marshy areas. So therefore that's why my house flooded as I was near kind of a marshy area and a river and I Was looking over through the trees in one area of our property in the back And I had never noticed it was kind of surrounded by a lot of other foliage. It was a cypress tree The base of it was absolutely tremendous. I wish I could give you some something that would be about the size of it It would be about the size of a small car Maybe not quite that large, but it was huge. I just wonder how old was that tree? How much of time and history had that tree experience? So trees are just awesome Okay, I was rambling on I need to talk about the painting. All right, you probably saw I chose Held up like a blue and this beautiful purple and here I think you can really get an idea of What I mean when I talk about the layering and the mixing and combinations of colors when you layer You see how when I'm laying down, especially in the sky portion there that purple on top of that coral color reddish coral color the vibrancy and the new color that it creates as an illusion and That's one of the reasons why I like I've learned over the years to keep a light touch to let those things happen If you press too hard You end up really just covering up the other color and you don't get those magical combinations now I'm using this purple to do a little negative painting carving in the tree in some areas because Logically, this is how it works if the sky is purple behind the tree You're gonna have little purple spaces in the little blank spaces or the little, you know Little areas where there's a little hole or a little opening in the tree You're gonna have that purple or whatever is behind it So that's what that negative painting is all about if I just left everything behind the tree That yellow or that coral color as I add more blues and purples it wouldn't make any sense That's just not how things work with physics and nature. All right, so here's that blue It's kind of a nice beautiful middle value blue middle to light value blue and I'm just adding it a little bit in some of the areas really just having fun at this point and so pay attention to some of the beautiful color combinations and Illusions that happen with color as I add these colors I loved this at the point where I just kept it all this loose Once I add more of the blue and the purple in the sky and then I add it in the water But I decided to keep going so you're gonna see like four different painting stages that you may want to stop at So anyway, I'm gonna speed it up again a lot of this is real-time Combination with speeding it up in sections to keep the video able to be uploaded this painting took a little over two hours So I do want you guys to be able to see the process and it wouldn't upload with my slow Wi-Fi out here in the country I'm a little limited. Maybe one day. I'll actually move to the property We want to move to where there is really good Wi-Fi, but until then I make it work And you guys let me know I love your comments. Let me know If there's other things you would like to see or other things I should cover Because that's how I know how to create these lessons and tutorials. All right, enjoy the music and I will be back very soon I tried to give you guys some close-ups there so you could see me develop the leaves But now I do have to make the reflection of the water Emulate the colors that are in the sky So I've got to add some of those purples and blues in the water as well I'm just turning this pastel on its side lightly glazing and Also looking for a few little negative spaces that I will see in the Reflection portion of the tree as well. What's happening above the tree or above the water in the tree is going to be happening Below the tree in the reflection of the water. So we're kind of recreate recreating the same little negative spaces But here's a little hint and don't let this all be overwhelming It's something just pack it away and remember it may be one day The way that color and value work or let's just talk about value the lightness and darkness in a reflection is If the color is dark above the water It's typically a little lighter in the reflection if the color is light above the water It's typically a little darker not a lot, you know, just a little knock it down a value shade or up a value shade and that's just a Scientific principle or law of physics. So you can see how I'm developing here some of those negative spaces in the moss of the tree rather than carving or painting in every little Strand of moss. I made some dark shapes and I carved the sky behind it or whatever is behind it Negatively and it really creates a much more painterly effect. I'm sorry for my easel shaking so much That's one of my goals on my patreon pages when I get a few more patrons, I'm going to bite the bullet and buy a Very sturdy standing easel. I'm still just using a French easel that is a little bit wobbly in my studio So that's one thing that my patrons helped me to do if you become a patron for five dollars a month You help and have already helped my patrons. Oh my goodness. You've helped me so much get better at the equipment that I have and Just my ability to have the right computer lighting all of those things so a good easel would be awesome You saw me probably just a minute ago I was measuring with my finger really things from the point of the base of the tree things will kind of measure out If you turn everything sideways, it's like a mirror image of each other typically I worked a little bit longer on this and I really enjoyed this once again I love trees. I love cypress trees and I hope I kept the majesty of this Beautiful grouping of cypress trees. I hope you enjoyed. I hope you learned a lot I hope you'll subscribe and come back often if you'd like to become a patron that would really bless me Please like this video leave me a comment. I love to hear from you and as always God bless and happy painting