 Welcome to Monet Café. I'm artist Susan Jenkins. Join me in this painting of mine where I paint a poppy meadow. I had some limited time to paint because of a crazy day, and I really enjoyed this beautiful field of poppies. I'll be sharing this video here on Monet Café, of course, but also on my Patreon page. If you'd like to become a patron, you can do so for just $5 a month, and you can cancel at any time. This painting is part of a challenge with my patrons called 12 Days of Healing. We're really having a great time. And even though this is a speed version, I still actually learn a lot myself, just from watching, the process of watching someone paint. So just relax and enjoy this. I am going to mention here some of my supplies. The pastel paper that I'm using here is called Pastel Matte. I got it in a pad of paper, and this is kind of a peachy warm color. I do really like it. And in the series of the 12 Days of Healing, I'm personally doing five by five paintings. All of the paintings I'm doing are five by five. My patrons participating, they can pick whatever size, but I do recommend something kind of small. So it's a challenge to paint every day for 12 days, and really just enjoy the process. I am actually finding it a bit challenging myself because I'm uploading videos of every single painting, having to film myself and edit them and upload them. So thus, that's why this one I chose just to make a little speed version, because I have another one I've got to edit too. And I'm going to get to that one tomorrow. But anyway, so watching this, you should learn a lot. But I have the Pastel Matte paper. I am using, right there, that pastel there is a Giro. I'm using a lot of Giro pastels. Right there, I was cutting it. They're longer. They're double the size of what you see there. And I cut them with a little cigar cutter. It cuts them perfectly in half with a nice, clean cut. And it makes it a more manageable size for painting. But these Giro pastels, it's a French word, and the French company makes them. And the set that I'm using is called the Elizabeth Maury. She's a wonderful pastel artist, M-O-W-R-Y, poetic landscape set. And you can't get that set on like Dick Blick or Jerry's Art of Rom or some of the other art supply retailers. But if you type in the name of that set, if you wanted it, Elizabeth Maury, poetic landscape as your Rho pastel, if you want. But you wouldn't even need to say that. You can find the companies like Pastels, Inc., or something like that. But I love the set of pastels. I do have another video here on Monet Café that features just this set of pastels. Now, those larger, chunkier ones you're seeing right there, pretty much all of the pastels you see that are dark were the Terry Ludwig dark pastels. Now what I'm doing here, I have a little piece of pipe foam insulation, and I, well not now anymore, but I use the pipe foam insulation to blend. You notice how those trees look softer now? It's an excellent blending tool, which if you see at the bottom where I haven't blended, now I'm blending. It leaves like little spaces on the paper that you see. Blending it kind of softens that up, and then you just continue the layering process. Now my reference photo didn't have a trail going back like that, but I always like to do some sort of visual trail that pulls the eye back instead of just a flat field. One of the things I love in painting is just creating depth, creating that three-dimensional aspect, and giving the viewer's eyes something to look at along the way as you strive as an artist to pull their eye and their attention around your painting to give it interest. So that little trail kind of does that too. Now I, even though I know the grass is going to be green, I'm putting down kind of a warm underpainting to give that grass something to lay upon. I love how Karen Margulis says laying the dirt down, and that's a perfect way to put it because that's really what you're doing. You've got to have something for your pastels to contrast, and warm colors like that usually do that with grass. So that's pretty much all the supplies, the pastel matte paper, the Giro, Elizabeth Mallory, poetic landscape set, and the Terry Ludwig pastels, and that's really it. And this painting ended up being very vibrant. I had a goal of painting for 30 minutes, but I probably doubled that. But anyway, this was a fun, nice little painting, and I hope you enjoy this. I hope you try it. And of course, if you're one of my patrons, remember to share it in our Google Album, and we're going to have some prizes for my patrons if you participate in the painting challenge. So keep that in mind, patrons. And again, if you'd like to become a patron, there is a clickable link at the end of this video, but all of my social media and patron links are all in the about section of this video. So, okay, now I'm really going to add some music you guys enjoy. Happy painting. Please watch to the end of this video. Also, please subscribe to my channel if you haven't already, and feel free to watch any of my other videos. All right, guys, happy painting. All right, artist, I hope you enjoyed that little speed demonstration, and I hope that you are getting some artistic time because art is truly therapeutic. Again, if you'd like to become a patron, there's a link right there. Please subscribe to my channel and check out more videos if you like. Be blessed and happy painting.