 Welcome inquiring artistic minds to Monet Cafe. I'm artist Susan Jenkins and I'm excited to bring you a beginner series in pastel and it's prompted by you guys. I did a little survey and you guys were emphatic that you would love some beginner art lessons. So first let's go over this very simple supply list. Basically you will need an apple. I'll have a photo that you can refer to. You'll also need some gray drawing paper, pencil or charcoal and six pastels. I will be going over these colors and values more as I paint. I will be keeping this real time so as to also help the beginner. Alright here's my model. Just a juicy apple. I'm using a Geoconda pencil. I don't think this one was charcoal but it's part of this particular pencil set but you could use whatever you have. It's basically just to get a sketch in. Now I like to hold my pencil kind of upwards like this if you notice the positioning of my hand. I also use an X-Acto blade to sharpen my pencil to get that long pencil lead part of it so that I can shade better. Now take notice that I am making a mark at where I want the top of the apple to be and the bottom of the apple to be. That little technique will help to ensure you get your apple on the page where you want it to be. Have you ever tried to draw something and you start in this one little section and you realize oh my gosh I've got it way bigger than I realized or wanted or I've got it way smaller than I wanted. So kind of making some guidelines with a top and a bottom mark really helps and as always practice practice practice. My apple was leaning a little bit. It was just kind of the way the apple was and I decided to kind of correct that a little bit as I added the pastels. Okay so now I'm just getting in that simple little line that represents kind of that divot where the stem comes out of and then just a very simple stem. Keep in mind this phase is very very simple. Now all I'm doing is kind of I think I'm just correcting here and kind of establishing. I decided I didn't want the stem where it was. Again that was making it look like it was leaning more than I wanted. So get the form correct before you start to commit to pastel and kind of just get that apple the way it just feels right and simple lines. Nothing too complicated and then after we get that simple form of the apple then is when we're going to just do some basic very basic shading. Now all we're doing now is working with value once I get I'm still working on this apple. I decided I need a little more to the back and then I think I'm going to get started shading now. So basically with the shading I want you to oh I'm drawing out the shadow. Pay attention though to if you were as I'm sketching out the shadow if you were to look at the apple whether it's my photo or one that you choose you're trying to distinguish three different values and now is when I'm going to start working on that. We're looking for the darkest value which is what I'm starting to shade in now. I actually would have preferred charcoal I realized after I started this. I like charcoal you can actually really kind of blend smudge it with your finger and get a kind of a nice little value study with it but this this worked fine too. This was really just like a really dark like a black pencil and so I'm looking for the darkest value medium value and lightest value that's all we're really looking for here. Also while drawing it really helps to keep in mind that an apple I guess we just think of it as a ball but it is faceted. It has different planes to it and so you don't always have to draw super curvy lines. We're basically just shading in a way that represents those sections of the apple now I'm just getting in a little bit of the shadow. If you squint your eyes you can see there is a little dark area at the the little indention where the stem is and a little bit that goes up around the back of it. Now I am emulating the form of the apple here a bit with some of my lines. Some of them will be a little bit more curved but basically it's just all about value right now and really that's all this is. It's a little value study before we get started applying the pastel. The color of the paper, the gray tone of the paper is really like your middle value and then I have really just added dark and kind of medium values to it as well with the with the pencil and how I'm smudging it here and this is what I was saying I like to do sometimes with charcoal is it does blend a little bit better than this does but but this worked for the purposes of of this little demonstration. Alright so basically we've just got a basic idea of the apple. Obviously we see where is the light source coming from I should have mentioned that before. That's very important. It's very easy to see in this little photo down here because it's right where you see that major highlight on the upper right side of the apple there and of course we have the shadow that's being cast from the apple on the left side. Now I'm not going to get real specific with edges here and that's another thing I'm going to be talking about as I paint is something called lost edges. Now here's a sample of the pastels. This is the you call it a dark red or a burgundy. It's just going to be your darkest value of that apple and if you look at the the image you can see it is kind of dark like that get dark maroon. Now there is the medium value of the apple and while this apple does have a whole lot of different values going on in it it's best to just focus really basic at first. There's our medium to light orange. It's not I'd say it's a medium orange and now just a light value. I'm using kind of a creamy color but it could have more of a color that's a little bit more blue or green or whatever. It's just got to be a lighter value. Notice how we've definitely got three different values going on there. We've got the dark burgundy, we've got the medium red and orange and we've got a light value. Now this is going to be for the shadow. It's just a darker blue. I wouldn't say it's a super dark value. I'd say it's a medium to dark blue. Now this is a medium blue. Sorry you can't see it real good down there with the apple but it's just going to be your medium cooler blue temperature also kind of for the shadow. My apple happened to be sitting down on a kind of a teal table cloth or towel. So that's kind of why I went with that blue color. Alright so now we're just working on getting these the darkest value. Watch how I'm emulating the apple, the shape of the apple. I'm also keeping a very light touch here. Now even though I drew out the apple with the pencil, that was really just for a guideline. You're going to notice when I'm working with this pastel, I don't make any lines other than the stem at the very end. And I'm keeping my pressure very light and I'm keeping my strokes directional. Alright so there is the darkest value. Now I'm going to the medium value. I'm using the side of it too. I break my pastels and actually sometimes I get a little too small but I'm using it to get that middle value of the apple. And again I'm thinking about if I was rubbing my hand or my pastel across that apple, how would it curve or how would I have to move my hand or my fingers or pastel to get that motion or that direction of the apple. And so that's what I'm doing here. I'm emulating. It's like I do it in my mind and I let my hand follow. So still getting in this middle value red. Now I want you to notice I'm doing some of the middle value over the darker value. And that's an important lesson. In pastel painting we typically work dark to light, laying your darkest values down first. Now you can see how I'm just gently blending the lighter and the darker to kind of get a different value there. It's not as dark as like the beneath part of the apple. And it's not as medium value as the the plain medium value that I have just on the more of the right side. Now I've got my little bit of orange here and I'm going to use that. You notice how where the stem comes out that's a little bit lighter in there. You see that the the light from actually it's my studio light is kind of shining down in that little area and it's also shining on the upper right of this apple. So I'm again making those little directional lines to kind of give that feeling of roundness or a curve to the apple. And once again I'm blending this medium value orange over the red that I've already put down. And you see how that's already giving an indication. We've just used three pastel colors here and three values here as well. So now I'm actually correcting the shape of my apple a little bit. Remember how I said when I drew it? I mean you want to get it generally right but you you do have the ability to correct some as well. Now also too like I mentioned before I don't have any lines that I've drawn. I've used the sides of the pastel for this entire process of painting this. And I think sometimes I'm just reinforcing the darks here. I think sometimes that's why people they get a little confused or think pastel painting how do you call it painting. People think of it as drawing but drawing is is usually more using linear marks and painting is also covering up usually the entire surface or mostly. And also these broader strokes you're really using a pastel very much like you would a brush in painting. Now I am using the darker blue that I picked out for the shadow. And all I'm doing here is just basically kind of sketching in with the side of my pastel again using the broader side of the pastel. Just kind of giving a general indication of where this shadow is. And again trying not to make an edge or I shouldn't say an edge a line a single individual line. Now just to kind of soften up that shadow a little bit. I usually don't blend with my fingers in regular pastel painting but sometimes I like to soften up a shadow or something because I want this apple to be more prominent than the shadow. Now I'm going to the middle value blue. Here's where I said you could see that blue a little bit better now. And I'm again just using the side of it to kind of just get a general idea of the blue that I saw underneath. It was actually a teal color but it doesn't matter even if you pick a different color here just make sure it's kind of a medium value. I thought the blue went along well with the shadow that's coming from the apple too. Now you'll notice I'm blending a little bit of that blue onto the the edges of that shadow just because it all kinds of things tend to blend together with light and with shadow. And now you see we've got more of a three-dimensional feel to this apple because of the shadow and because of the other blue that we've laid down. Now just I could leave this apple just as it is and we could have just used even less colors here but I'm going to use this right here to get that little bit of reflection that is on that part where the light was hitting where kind of behind where the stem comes out and just little simple strokes here and again kind of keeping a soft touch and now I'm just kind of paying attention to where that I'm using the side of the pastel of where that highlight is on the right side of the apple there. So you know this really when you start adding a little shadow underneath and you start adding these little highlights then you really start getting that three-dimensional effect of it feeling more real like it's not just flat on that paper that it's coming off of the surface. And for these next few I think minutes I was just kind of fine-tuning a little bit you notice that that apple has some stripes in it that were a little bit lighter you want to be careful not to get your I'm showing how it gets dirty sometimes you have to wipe it off you want to be careful not to get your that that light value orange or medium value orange I don't want to get too much of it over on the left side of the apple because you notice look at the photo that's really in shadow so we want to keep that more shadowy on the left side and darker values so again this is really starting to look like a little apple again this is not going to be a super advanced type of lesson it's just to get the basics but really the basics are so important once you start getting past some of the simple lessons that we need to keep in mind or you if you ignore those your paintings you'll get more frustrated for one and you won't keep that painterly style as I always say big shapes less detail first working to smaller shapes and more detail last now because this apple some of the light or some of the color from the apple will be reflected onto your little tablecloth or whatever is on the apple I'm just getting a little bit of that red and orange just very very lightly again trying to keep it not making individual lines but just keeping a real soft soft touch as I'm adding this and then again I can take that and soften it up with a little bit of the blue on the top now you see how these have been working when I put down a dark color and then I add a lighter color on top of it how it just kind of blends together so in the future you know other than certain areas where you might blend with your fingers remember that you can blend with your pastels and keep that very loose painterly look also too the more you blend whether it be your fingers or with pastels the more layers you add as you continue to add layers you lose the brilliance of the color of the pastels so trying to not overlayer is a is a really good method or strategy to use with pastel painting having an efficiency of stroke not just painting willy nilly and then correcting and correcting so that you end up with mud when you're done now again I could have left the background just the color of the gray paper which was kind of nice but I thought you know let's go ahead and add you know where I actually did have some light kind of reflecting on a wall behind the apple so I thought you know what yeah let's just add a little bit more dimension to this and make it you know a little bit more interesting and now once again I'll be using this blue pastel now to kind of soften up some of that area to the left in the background because more of the highlight was really on the right side in my particular viewpoint of looking at the apple so I'm just kind of softening some of that white not covering it all up or not white you know it's cream it's a lighter value and just softening it up so that I'm getting a nice gradation between the light the medium and the darker shadow there and now again I'm blending a little bit more with this pastel because I did have it a little bit lighter if you notice in the reference photo see how it's lighter the wall behind it is lighter on the right side than it is on the left side and not that I have to represent that exactly like I see it but it's just general general guide here and now I will be adding the little stem and I needed for this all of my pastels were a little bit too chunky to add that stem so I have a little new pastel they're made by prismacolor and they're in you pastel they're harder and so usually can get a little bit more of a fine edge to it and it wasn't black it was actually just a little bit darker than that burgundy the darkest value that I used up there at the top right of the where I put all the pastels down now I'm just kind of shaping that little stem a little bit a little better there and you can actually if you have something too thick you can kind of carve it down with whatever the color is behind it like that white but anyway so just get you a general stem in with kind of the appropriate direction of the stem and now I'm adding a little bit more of that burgundy darker red in the cast shadow and now notice how when I do that I haven't added any purple to this painting at all but you know sometimes people say you can't mix colors with pastels well you sort of can because adding that burgundy in the shadow not well sort of where I'm working now too and adding that the blue and the burgundy together are going to make a little bit of a an illusion of purple can you kind of see that and purples are always great for shadows and blue because typically cooler colors are in the shadows and cooler colors also recede they tend to go back in the distance just like mountains when you see mountains in the distance that are blue you're like why do they look blue it's because there's so much atmosphere between you and the distant mountains but uh but blue colors are give the illusion of things receding and or cool colors and warm colors give the illusion of coming forward just like this apple that's coming forward so as I'm finishing this up I thought I'd also mention for you to watch this again review this a few times practice it practice different fruit you know but with the same concept of a dark value medium value light value and maybe some colors for shadows and also keep in mind the concept about what's called lost edges again how I am I'm not really drawing I'm putting in more shapes and while this has been somewhat of a simple lesson I think a very valuable lesson because these basics are very important and I am so appreciative to you and your comments so let me know what you think and if you happen to be one of my patrons and you do this particular uh little painting or exercise I would love for you to share it in our Patreon group and if you haven't become a member of my Patreon page I'm just giving a little thank you and a shout out this is just a little example of all the people who've become patrons of mine and I can't thank you enough for your five dollar a month support to me it really does help me to keep these videos coming where I can focus more on my art and the youtube channel really gets a benefit as well it helps me to continue to bring the free videos here on youtube as well I hope this video blessed you and I hope you'll continue to find joy through your artistic explorations happy painting