 Hello artists and visitors to Monet Café. I'm artist Susan Jenkins, and I hope you guys enjoy this as much as I enjoy putting it together. I recently discovered a sunflower field near my home, and you know, you just have to get out and get some pictures. So I got over a hundred pictures, I believe. I shared them on my Patreon reference album for my patrons to use and look at this shot. I didn't even know I caught that bee zooming into this flower. So out of all these photos I actually chose one that you might think, why did you choose that one out of all those bright sunflowers? But I'll describe that in a minute. Also, stay tuned to the end of the video where you'll actually see me harvest my own Sunflowers for their seeds. I was really fascinated by this. It was the first time I'd ever done it. So I do have that description and video process at the end. Here are some of the pastels I used. I really love this Elizabeth Mowry Poetic Landscape Collection by Jirot Pastels, a great versatile set. And I also used a lot of the Unison 120 half-stick set. I've been using this set a lot because it has such a great variety of pastels. Also, I'm using a piece of pastel matte and I love the surface. It takes a lot of layers. It's not too gritty though, and I'm using the dark darkest color in that pad. Of course, I got to have my little studio mascot, my Jackson, in the studio with me. He's my buddy. Also, I've been using a little piece of chamois cloth to blend on pastel matte paper. It works well on this paper. Not all papers though. And of course, I'm wearing my Monet Café Earth Colors Diffuser Bracelet. They're great for putting your essential oils on them. I always have a link to purchase in the about section of the videos. Now here we go. I'm using to begin with some new pastels made by Prismacolor. And I'm doing something a little different in this video. I'm keeping real time and the sound of the nice scratchy sound on the surface and combining it with speed version where it's something that you don't necessarily need to see the whole slow motion part or real-time part of it. So I'll slow it down when I describe something. Now here you can see, I'm also going to be sharing with you a lot of the actual pastels I'll be using. These are all new pastels again made by Prismacolor. They are great for using as an underpainting, which is what this is. And the reason they are is because they're harder than some of the softies and it allows you to still get a lot of layering in. You're not filling up the tooth of the paper or the surface of the paper so quickly. So I'm using the combination of pinks and that medium to dark dull blue just to get in a general value study. I didn't get a picture of this particular color, but it's this set that I have of the new pastels is the 96 set of pastels. I got them on a really good sale. Oh gosh, a couple of years ago, and they'll last you a long time. So that's one of the lighter blues in the set. I also used one of these pinks and you'll see by the end of the painting, sometimes I kind of change my mind as I'm working and I decided to kind of go with the feel of or the mood of the photo and I wanted to really subdue the background. So by the end of this painting, you'll see that happens. I gray it out a lot. Now this is a Sennelier pastel. It's I love Sennelier. They're very soft, but I wanted to get some greens in on those trees. Now I'm back to using or actually this is the first time in this video that I'm using one of the Giro pastels from that poetic landscape set and I wanted to get a little bit of that teal to push those trees back. However, I felt it was a little too light. So I do darken that up a little bit later. Now here's where I'm using the little chamois cloth. It works really good to if you just kind of want to blend in and not have something looking so textured like that sky. I just want to soften it up a bit and I actually end up blending it all over the whole surface of the foreground trees and just to give everything a softer feel. And the purpose of an underpainting is often just to get everything kind of covered and establish general shapes and values. And in order not to contaminate the colors, I usually blend from light to dark. Now here's the 120 half stick set of unison pastels that is such a great versatile set. I highly recommend it. It also has some really good darks. Now I'm putting up a picture here of some of the unisons that I used and you probably can't see it great and you know colors always kind of different on different people's monitors, but it's a really dark blue. And what I'm doing here, I already kind of did it with the underpainting, is I'm establishing a trail that's going to be underneath the flowers, which will give depth to the painting and lead the viewer's eye in and around the composition just to create more interest instead of having it very flat. Now I'm establishing more of the darks in the trees to give them some more definition and interest. And also I changed my mind on this one pink. I'm back to using a Prismacolor new pastel, one of the harder pastels. And I'm using this bright pink. You might be like, why is she using pink? That field looks kind of primarily green. And I will go back, like I said at the beginning and tell you why I chose this photo. But I'm using these colors because they're more of a complementary color. I need something for the greens to contrast and create interest. And that back part of the field is where it was much lighter. And that's where I'm going to have a really light green. So I thought that pink would be really interesting. Now I'm again kind of establishing some of these values. And by the end of the painting, here's a little foreshadowing into the future. I end up changing the tree line a bit. I wanted it to be less noticeable. I wanted the main interest to be those flowers. I realized that by the end of the painting. Now I'm adding a unison, one of the unison 120 half stick pastels. It's a nice purple. Purples create, I don't know, I just love purples in the shadows. So I'm adding some of that down into these deep shadowy areas that the sunflowers will be on top of. I'm also pulling it back into some of those far distant trees. There's kind of like three layers of trees. Now I'm using another Giro. I believe this is a 192, the number on the Giro. The neat thing about Giro pastels is they have the number carved right into the pastel. So as long as you haven't used it enough to wear it off, you can still see it. Now here is a picture of some of the other unison 120 half sticks that I used. And I am using the blues that you see here. This is the first blue that you see, I believe, in that picture there. And I do end up graying out the sky towards the end. My painting started becoming very bright at the beginning stages and I just wanted to really subdue the background. In other words, I didn't want the foreground and the background competing for attention. So I decided to make the foreground the focus of this painting. You'll see as that develops as I go on. Now I'm just kind of softening some things here. I wanted to show how I'm kind of generally getting in some sky holes here. And sky holes, just so you know, are the spaces that you see the sky through the trees. And it's called negative painting and it's often better to create the holes rather than create the branches. It just gives a more artistic look. Again, I kind of reestablished these trees and kind of redo the sky holes before it's all said and done. But I'm keeping a light touch for the most part with this because I don't want to get to where I can't get any more layers down or muddy my colors. I actually do. I worked on this. I was surprised I got so many layers with this, but perhaps my touch is getting lighter. All right, so we've got kind of this bold color ready to get some greens in. Here is, I believe this is the bottom giro. And again, that number 205 is carved right in on my pastel. Fortunately, I hadn't rubbed it off by using the pastel. But here's where I was saying I'm getting some of those bright greens. Now, I know on the monitor, the reference photo you see here, I didn't do any adjustment to it on my computer screen. So you're just seeing it kind of how it was from the camera. But when I look at a photo, sometimes I just see what I think I want to accentuate. And it was that band of bright greens. The sunflowers, obviously in the foreground, I'm going to lead the eye into it. But I really love that band of green in the background field. I'm playing around with some greens here, but I believe I decide I need a little bit more darks. Believe it or not, I felt like I needed some more darks to kind of give some more roots and substance to where these flowers are. And if you follow my videos, I talk all the time about value and the importance of it and how it's darker in the foreground and typically lighter in the background. And of course, things vertical like the trees are going to be darker in value. Things flat are usually lighter in value. Now, I'm showing again the picture of this as a senelier. You can see that little line next to that dark, dark green. It almost looks like a block down there. And believe it or not, I'm going to add more darks. This is the, I guess it's become kind of famous, the Terry Ludwig Eggplant color. You see how dark that is compared to everything else? I decide later to kind of soften up the darks that I added to those trees. But I did still kind of want to get a little bit more dark back in there. So you see how that trail, the darkest, dark I just put down is going to lead the eye, even though I covered up with a lot of flowers and grasses. It's still kind of there underneath pulling your eye, even though you don't even realize it. Now I'm playing with color, having a lot of fun here. And as I mentioned, I decide to subdue it more before I'm done. You guys let me know how, if you like this combination of me explaining things and having real time dispersed with speeding it up a little bit. And multiple reasons I speed it up is one, I don't want to bore you guys to death with an almost two hour video. I spent probably longer than I needed to on this painting. But also it decreases the file size, so my upload speed works better. But what I was saying is that I end up changing the color palette a little bit. Even though I at this point really like some of these bolder, higher, more highly saturated colors, I wanted to neutralize it and keep it more like the photo and the mood. And the reason I chose this photo, which hang, I will describe the reasoning why I picked this photo before this is all done. This, what I'm doing here, this is, I'm establishing where some of the flowers are. I don't need to do the whole flower. I'm just kind of giving an idea of those sunflower heads, you know the center part of the sunflower. And I've shared on my Patreon page, I actually have a video about this, about how to try to create a sense of randomness like nature does. We have a tendency to order things and create patterns, even unintentionally. And I'm trying to get better at this too, to have like a harmony and just a natural, spontaneous beauty in the positioning of things like flowers and trees and things like that. So I'm using this Sennelier, I'm sorry, this unison from the 120 half stick set. It's the dark, dark blue. But I do believe that I later make it a little darker. Oh yeah, there's the Terry Ludwig egg plant color. Again, still putting down some more darks down there. But yeah, there we go. These are just basically giving me an idea of where I want some of the main flowers. Now, most of the flowers in this are not really big flowers. I decided to keep them kind of like they were in the photo and not bring attention to any one in particular. So maybe that one that's up kind of higher to the right there and just draw the eye back into that background. Now, let me talk while I work here a little bit. I think this is that Sennelier green again. Again, I do decide to tone down this teal blue. I thought it was a little too bold. But again, back to the reason I chose the photo. When I originally rode by the sunflower field, I saw it and I was just like, oh my goodness, look at that. And they were all facing the sun. In other words, I was seeing the backsides of the sunflowers. And it's like they were just looking at the sun. And I believe it was it was afternoon, my husband and I were going to the sushi bar. This is where I'm kind of establishing the trees, making them higher. Remember how I said, they felt too fixed. So I gave them some height and kind of neutralize that color a little bit. But anyway, I just love the view of the sunflowers looking at the I happen to be, like I said, we're going to the sushi bar. So the sun was actually setting, I guess, but they had still been facing that way. And I thought what a what a neat thing to see is how flowers just look to the sun. And I don't know, it just felt a little spiritual to me. So I think that's the reason I chose that photo and I liked the mood. Again, I got a little too crazy with color at the beginning and I tone it down by the end. But I liked it not being just about color, but more about the sunflowers looking to the the sun, whether it was a rising sun or a setting sun. Now here I'm using this is a Terry Ludwig. I'm sorry, didn't include the picture of this. It's just kind of a buttery gold color. And I'm using it just to establish some of these sunflowers that are obviously very far away. Thus, that's why they're so small. And in that part of the field that kind of pulls your eye back there for interest, I had a little bit more of these later, but they show up really nicely because of the contrast between the dark trees and the bright color. Now I'm using here this is a Giro pastel. It's one of the darker gold colors in the set. And I want to get with really everything we work dark to light, even with flowers often with pastels. I want to get something darker down, even though I know I'm going to have some of that pretty bright sunflower yellow color. And I still want to try not to go too light too soon. But I've got to have something for them to contrast with. So that's why I'm using some of these darker golden yellowy colors before I add the lighter highlights. Now I'm adding a few more of the sunflower heads to the flowers just to have a general idea of where they're going to be. And here is where I'm actually using a greenish colored kind of a yellowy green Giro pastel. Again, like I said, I wanted to neutralize things a little bit and the sky had really a neutral feel in the photo. So I'm using this color. It might sound strange to put green in the sky, but I thought it brought the painting together instead of having a separation of yellow sunflowers, green grass and blue sky. And I don't know, I liked it when I started playing around with it. And I add a little bit more of that before I'm done. But that kind of gave me a direction of where I wanted to head with this. And here we go. So now let me zoom in so you can see this better. I'm adding the lighter values of the yellowy, I think this is even that yellowy green color that I put in the sky. And again, this is going to give the petals something to hang on to. If I had just used this color alone without that darker orange golden color, they wouldn't have had the depth to them. And playing around still with some of the grasses and obviously keeping things smaller and closer together in the distance because of how perspective works. And it gives that illusion of distance. And I'm going to speed this part up again. So anyway, still establishing grasses, trying not to cover up totally my darker underpainting trail so that it is still suggested there. Once again, playing around with some purples. I love to add purples in the shadowy parts of grasses. And this is the darker, one of the darker blues that Unison now playing around with more of the flowers. Again, I'm playing around with speeding this up in sections and slowing it down, where I want to give a little bit more focus. But you can see here still playing around with adding some of the darker golden colors for the sunflowers, dispersing them intermittently throughout the painting, drawing the eye back. And I'm trying to focus more personally on creating an interesting composition. You don't have to follow your photograph exactly. If you start learning some of the rules of what's going to make this painting interesting and why did I like it and what was important to me. And then you can learn to use the rules of art and perspective and color and value to recreate what you loved about that moment or that photo. I've added some of the stems here, which I've done fairly dark and stems work similar to the flower heads that I was speaking of. I usually get something a little darker down and then a lighter color almost as a highlight from where the sun would be coming from. Otherwise, they just look kind of flat like I was describing about the flowers. So still working, trying hard not to get rid of that path, but to create a sense of some grasses growing up in there and that teal color I'm using right there. I don't think I had a picture of that one. I'm sorry. It's just kind of a, I think that one is a Sennelier. It's just a really pretty turquoise teal color. And you see how that teal just kind of made it come alive, playing around with some of the greens still. And here's a picture of some of the new pastels that I use to create, not just the stems of the flowers, but some of the grasses. Here I am showing how I created the general stems and leaves. You'll see me adding soon for the sunflowers. I noticed that sunflowers, their leaves are almost heart shaped. So this is a general idea of the stem and then I come out with the side of my pastel and I gradually curve it and press to where you're getting the flat side, almost using it like a brush, like if you were painting. And it's amazing the things that you can do and create with pastels by learning how to turn them and position them to get leaves. Now what I'm doing here is I'm using a darker pastel just on a little index card. And let me know guys, if you're liking my little index card, my next painting I already have it created. I do better at putting my marks down as I paint and showing you the actual pastels. And I'm doing that because of your request. You guys are always helping me to know what you want to get better. Now, just like I mentioned before, I got that darker green down and now I'm getting like the lighter, that's a Giro pastel actually, lighter highlights on top of the darker color. So that's the general idea of the shape of the stems and leaves. So you can see now they're all kind of bare. You don't have any of that. And this may look like a dark pastel to add, but again, it needs something dark for that highlight to be able to contrast upon. And I was thankful I was looking at how they show up on top of the grasses. And because I have it so dark in the little trail underneath, they're even showing up pretty good down there as well. And then when I get these in where I want, I obviously just want these leaves. Again, the flowers weren't big. So I know the leaves aren't going to be huge here. I wanted to get them in just in the area of those initial entryway sunflowers. And everything just gets smaller as it goes back. Now here's where I'm adding. This is a cooler green, just for some of that, to bring in some of that background that I put back there to pull it forward and harmonize the painting. And to give some highlights onto where the sun would be hitting most of the top part of those leaves rather than the ones so deep down in the grass as the sun's not going to get way down into there. Now there's a sunflower that I have down at the one that's closest to the bottom, almost in the middle. As I worked on this painting, you see, oh well, that's another giro, that pretty orange. I decided to add some oranges in with this. And I end up getting rid of that sunflower that's in the foreground there. I felt like, I don't know, it was just bothering me. I'll describe how I do that in a minute. I also decided, I wanted to zoom here for you to see, to establish some of that pink that I had in the underpainting. You know, I covered, almost all of it's covered up at this point, which I don't always do that. I usually have some of the underpainting peeking through. There is a little bit on the far left side there. But I just thought, some of these pinks just might be nice, you know? Sometimes it's just fun to play around with color a little bit. Oh, and back to that foreground sunflower that I had there. I felt it didn't add anything. I mean, I wanted the eye to be drawn into the painting, but I already felt like I had that, even if I got rid of that sunflower, pulling the eye in. So I just brush it out with a stiff bristle brush. You'll see me do that later and kind of re-establish that area. Now again, I feel like I've kept that general depth of the trail that's kind of pulling the eye back. Now I'm adding some teals. Teals are also a great color to put in grasses or leaves that are down deeper in grasses. Things seem to cool off when there's no sunlight hitting them. And a teal is a cooler green versus a warmer green. Again, I'm still working on this foreground flower and the more I worked on it, the more I decided I got to get rid of this thing. See, it's just like, it's, I don't like the shape of it or anything. I skipped ahead here so you could see where I actually erase it. I had added a few more grasses, but I basically just brush it out with a stiff bristle brush. Add a little more darks to establish like the depth of those stems and stalks growing down into the ground. Added a few more leaves. There's that pretty giro purple and some more grasses. So I'm not sure what I did there. Oh, I wanted to add, it was too dark. I added some teal or something to brighten it up. But see how versatile pastels can be? The goal, of course, is to get good enough to where you don't have to brush things out. But it's nice to know that you can. Here's where I'm adding a little bit more of that green. I think this one's actually even a little more neutral. This might have been the first one that I used earlier in the painting, but just to neutralize the sky. And I felt this color brought more unity to the painting as a whole rather than just a blue sky. So it connected things for me. And here I'm adding, with the same color, a few more of those little bright sunflower heads in the background popping up above the rest. And again, because of the contrast of the dark trees, you really see them. And once again, I'm trying not to create too much of a pattern to anything. Here I'm just adding more of that glow, that warm glow, using that yellowy green pastel. And here's the final. I like to look at it sometimes with a mat to see what it would look like framed. So this was fun. I really enjoyed this. And as I often say, painting is or should be as much about the experience as the actual physical painting itself. And I'm going to now always remember those beautiful sunflowers. Here's the better image of the actual reference photo and why they just look like they were waiting on something special. So here's a little bit more of the final painting and also stay tuned. I'm going to show you my own sunflowers where I've harvested the sunflower seeds. In the springtime, I planted from seed some sunflowers, probably about 12 or 15 behind my house. Now I have let them do their aging process. There's a little ant there. And you have to let them age for a while before you get the seeds out. And I've cut them off. And now this is the first time I've ever done this. I am harvesting the seeds, which if you have seen the video I made on the golden ratio, you will probably notice the pattern of the seeds as they grow in the head of the sunflower. It's just absolutely fascinating. So I noticed that the seeds are covered up by a lot of the debris from the flower still. So I basically just rubbed it off. And fortunately, I'm not afraid of spiders. I didn't know there were spiders in here, but I did put on some gloves later just to make sure I didn't get bit by any of them. But I basically just got all of the debris off the flowers as I did it with the other sunflowers. I've even peeled off the outer petals or those leaves, those little green leaves that grow on the outside. And I got it all really nice and clean before I started actually getting the sunflower seeds out. Here's a little closer view where you can actually see the Fibonacci sequence at work and how absolutely mathematically precise it is. And one of the reasonings for this design is it's the most efficient. Literally it can pack the most amounts of seeds in the most compact and efficient way by using this pattern, mathematical numerical pattern found in nature. It's something found in nature that someone with the name Fibonacci actually got his name on it because I don't even think he's the one who originally discovered it. Go watch the video. It's very cool. When I was done, I had plenty that were actually darker seeds and then I had some that had dried even more. These are better for actually roasting, but I think I'm going to give my other ones to my birds and squirrels. I hope you enjoyed that video. That was about art and nature. So until next time, happy painting.