 Welcome to Monet Cafe and Susan Jenkins Fine Art. I'm Susan Jenkins and Monet Cafe is a place where you can learn a lot and today I have wanted for so long to learn how to paint with pastels on wood and I finally figured it out so join me in this video where I'll be revealing the secret recipe well no it's not a secret but I'm gonna go over a lot of things to teach you how to do this and of course I have my sweet little studio mascot Jackson in the studio with me today and oh I have a brand new Etsy shop there's so much to do it's been a long time coming but I finally have gotten started on my Etsy shop I've got a lot of new paintings submitted thank you so much to those who have already bought paintings it's really blessed me and I'll be uploading new paintings all the time so keep checking it out I do have a coupon code so check out the description section of this video here's a sneak peek at the final painting that was done on a wood panel and I'm calling this part one because this was kind of my experimentation process I'm going over what I did and how I'm correcting it and have already corrected it for part two that will be coming hopefully soon hello artists and friends I'm artist Susan Jenkins and welcome into my studio today where I'm gonna do a little experimenting I have wanted for a long time to be able to apply or create a pastel painting on a wood panel now Arteza the company Arteza was nice enough to send me this product complimentary and I'm going to do a little experimenting today and hopefully come up with a technique where we can apply pastel paintings to a wood panel now how would we frame that well I've got another product coming soon that I might be able to share some tips on that as well all right let's begin by showing you the products that I used I found a recipe online for this process from another artist from a long time ago and I have tweaked the recipe since this video so that's why I said there'll be a part two now here are the Arteza wood panels comes in a pack of five they're very smooth you really don't need to sand them or anything to begin this process so I like them I'm definitely going to do this again now the other products that I'm using what he recommended in his recipe and I will share you his recipe you'll see it soon is regular gesso not clear gesso like I often use I didn't have enough regular gesso so I altered the recipe by adding some clear gesso I'll go into all of this as I put it together clear gesso just so you know has I'm putting it in my fingers right now has a little bit of grit to it a little bit of sand that's why you'll see I have so many videos where I talk about creating your own pastel surface using clear gesso not the regular gesso I showed before it does not have the grit and this product is called dry pumice by Matisse I couldn't find it on dickblit but I've had this for years now just so you know this feels really a lot like the sand that is in the clear gesso however the recipe that you see on my scratchy notebook down there the gentleman who made this called for marble dust I didn't have any marble dust so I ordered it but for this video I replaced the marble dust with the dry pumice and just so you know I'm doing a voiceover ignore my hands here just so you know the dry pumice is a great product to use in creating your own pastel surfaces but in using it this time it came out a little bit too gritty or too coarse so again you're going to see this whole experimentation process and get to the final successful results all right let's mix this up and have some fun here is my setup with all of my measuring tools and ingredients and I'm about to put the recipe across the screen here for you to watch and again this recipe is the one that I got from another youtube video I'll talk about that more in a minute it's one cup of water one cup of regular gesso 12 tablespoons of marble dust which I did not have you'll you'll hear me talk about that you mix it all together he recommended a blender I didn't use a blender because I was experimenting and with different products since I didn't have all the ingredients I cut the recipe down since I didn't need that much and I ended up just using a half a cup of water a half a cup of the gesso but you notice the this is a little quarter cup container I'm using so I used a quarter cup of the regular gesso and now I'm putting a quarter cup of the clear gesso because I didn't have enough regular gesso so I'm mixing all that up again it's a half a cup of water and quarter cup of regular gesso quarter cup of clear gesso and I did one two three four five six uh tablespoon foals of the dry pumice again I am really altering his recipe because I was impatient I couldn't wait to try and I just used what I had on hand I decided to tint my concoction with a color and I'm using some acrylic ink I had these two purples this one's real frosty or metallic looking it's a lighter purple it's that real pale one on the top the other one at the bottom is one that's called purple lake I really love this color it goes on really dark you can use these acrylic inks for under paintings so it didn't look dark on that card but you can you can actually get it to be a really nice dark value for under paintings and I will share a little disclaimer I'm going to have quite a few disclaimers in this video because I was still in the experimentation process but I kind of realized that was such a large quantity of white that I had to use too much acrylic ink to even get it to tone a color so it's way better after the fact once it's dried on the surface to then tint so you don't use up so much product you know acrylic inks aren't cheap so anyway but I did go ahead and tint it I was like okay whatever now here's my little uh it's actually from our chinese restaurant little containers that are so handy so that's my little storage container and I decided to use a roller brush to apply this I wanted it to be really smooth by the way I'm speeding this up because this wasn't the grand success story that you're going to see in the next video in that one I will slow everything down so I'm kind of giving you a little precursor and I'll share again the things that I did not like about my mixture so I again the roller I thought it might go on um smoothly actually I think it was a combination of the roller and the pumice the pumice is much grittier than the marble dust that you'll see me use in the next video because I finally got my marble dust all right so the the gentlemen in the video recommend three coats doing it vertically and then horizontally oh and because my roller brush was I saw the texture I could see it I decided to grab a a foam brush and try to get it more smooth and it sort of worked it didn't work great but it was a little more smooth than it was with the roller brush and after blowing it dry here's my second coat I did what he recommended I only did two coats by the way I did it one way vertically one way horizontally I put it on with the roller brush like I did before and then I smoothed it out with the foam brush also I like to save my wet utensils in a little ziplock bag to keep them fresh so I don't have to go wash them out right away now I am sanding it down right here I could tell by feeling it it was just too gritty and it did help a bit and again you are seeing my first go at this so I hope I don't get a lot of thumbs down because this one didn't work as good as the one that the video that will be coming all right so here's the board and I'm I guess you could say skeptical we'll see I sanded off as you could see it was very textured so I sanded it off so that it won't when it's so textured it literally eats up your pastels I mean you will run out of your past your expensive pastels so quickly I was showing another product here that I've used that was too coarse in the past it's golden coarse molding paste it was part of a video I did called eight ways to make your own pastel papers that's a great video and I have many videos on making your own pastel surfaces here's another one it's a great way to save money pastel papers are so expensive here's another technique of a video I made and I love this particular video right here and a fourth one I think I have five or six videos so I wanted to let you know I'm going to share links to all these videos in the description section of this video in case you want to check those out here's the reference photo I'll be using it was one of many photos I took from a sunflower field near my home I did a recent painting tutorial oh a video or two back on this gorgeous field I did it a regular pastel painting on that now I'm doing a sketch I'm speeding this up because this is not about the painting since I had some challenges with the surface it's more about the experimentation and the way to make your own surface now you guys have shared you like my new technique of showing all the pastels I use these happen to be all of the pastels that I use for this video the TL darks that stands for terry Ludwig those were the Giro it's not called romantic landscape it's called poetic landscape I wrote it down wrong the Giro set that's a senelier that turquoise and burgundy went up there I used that great american that orange one uh more Giro's all around that word terry Ludwig's pointing to the right and down below NP is new pastel so I'll share more about this in videos to come I just wanted to show you and thank you guys for that feedback I'm going to start doing this in the future to help you guys know what pastels I'm using all right here I go on my very coarse surface by the way the sketch I just used a charcoal pencil this is one of those dark terry Ludwigs that that one's a dark green the first one I used was a really dark purple I think it's the terry Ludwig eggplant color so I can tell already that because I used the dry pumice instead of the marble dust it was really coarse oh you saw me use a chamois cloth there I've been using that to blend there I am using it again that's just a little chamois cloth and it really blends well on this surface and multiple surfaces it does not blend well on your paper there I am writing down my terry Ludwig darks and now I'm getting in a Giro that's the poetic landscape all of these right here are the Giro I love Giro pastels I would say it's like Goldilocks you know as you said um uh it's just right the bed wasn't too hard or too soft and that's how those uh pastels are they're kind of a nice in between pastel and I could feel though that I was losing more pastel in the application than I typically do so I decided to go ahead and finish the painting but I knew right away I was going to have to change my process now I'm just going to again I'm speeding this up because I didn't want this video to be about this particular painting I want you to see how it worked but it was more about how you too can do this and I don't recommend using the pumice for this example part two videos coming and just so you know I've already done it I got my marble dust in I used the marble dust I did change the recipe a little bit and it worked great for me I have another wood surface that I'm going to be sharing with you guys in the next video oh my gosh it's so fun I'm having so much fun with these oh that's my little cigar cutter that is great for cutting uh pastels in half especially round ones because the cigar cutter is round so I'll tell a little bit about this painting typically with sunflowers I've learned that um our brain tells us to grab all those gorgeous yellowy gold colors but sunflowers actually have a lot of darker cooler purple-y colors in them in the shadow areas they have a lot of oranges and reds and darker deeper values than you would think and then it's only typically the tips of the pastels pastels the tips of the sunflower petals that get that bright gorgeous gold so you know reserve the temptation to try to do that see here I'm putting down some reds I get my darker values down first and then just like sprinkles on a cake uh you pop those brighter golds and yellows on more towards the end now my sunflower as you can see in the reference image was a little bit um sad looking why shouldn't say sad he's standing up straight but his petals had started to I guess dry out in the sunshine it was probably getting closer to the end of its life you know like me I can relate to some of these sunflowers and you may have seen in my other past I'm in my other sunflower video that I shared I literally grew my own sunflowers behind my home it was such a fascinating process and I actually harvested them and it was really neat I have that little footage at the end of my other sunflower video I think it's the sunflower painting video I think it's the video right before this one if you want to go watch that one it was really fun now you see I've got my oranges down on top of the darks and now I'm adding some golds but there's still not the the brightest golds that I will add or yellows that I will add those really get more I noticed this was kind of backlit and it was the top um tips of the petals that were really getting the sunshine now you see I'm adding blues and purples I find that makes a great color in that um uh center section of the sunflower it had more dark in it um then I originally gotten down so I I keep working with that I love these reds that's another um Giro pastel I believe no that's a great American I just marked it down great Americans are very very soft I like them I think I lean more towards Terry Ludwig's more but but great Americans are awesome too so you know I don't want to I don't want to be too partial towards anyone pastel now I loved that turquoise blue that was a senelier oh I love senelier pastels I just really love them um I didn't use a lot in this particular painting of my new set I've been talking about a lot uh it's the unison 120 half stick set talk about that set a lot because I think it's a great set for beginners once you know you're going to be painting with pastels and you think okay I'm going to put a little bit of an investment into some nicer uh larger set of pastels I like that unison 120 half stick set because it is a set where you can paint so many things you've got it's got a great assortment of pastels but I didn't use it I don't think any of them for this pastel even though I love unison pastels so I'm jabbering a honey here I thought you know I might as well give you a little uh pastel instruction oh gotta have a little brownie I put some brownies in the oven and I made some coffee and oh it was such a nice break don't you just love painting you know I love our little happy family here in Monet cafe and oh thank you all my patrons um for those of you who decide to support me on my patreon page um I'll put a link to that to my patreon page you have allowed Monet cafe for me to have more time and uh better equipment and um everything is better because of the financial contribution from those of you who support me on the patreon page it's only five dollars a month and you do get extra content but I know that a lot of people support me and this channel I don't think of it as me I think of it as this vehicle Monet cafe to get art out to so many people we have people in villages that aren't even on google maps and you know it's just people in remote areas sometimes or people who don't have access we have a lot of handicap people we have a lot of elderly people and I love it that's it is totally my dream come true what is happening with Monet cafe was being able to bring you guys along with on me on my journey of learning art and bring it to everybody so it's a big old happy family it's awesome so thank you patrons you're helping this channel have more and better content all right enough of that I just have to brag on my patrons all right so um I'm gonna play some music you guys can watch the rest of this and I'll show you a close-up at the end of the texture of the board it is too textured and again part two I have fixed this problem and I'm excited because I'm definitely going to be doing more paintings on wood and on the neat little wood surface that I'm going to be sharing with you soon all right enjoy the music stay tuned to the end because I'm going to show that close-up I thought I'd slow this back down to real-time at the end here so you can hear that scratchy sound that the pastels are making on the surface I love that sound and it's probably making more of that sound because of the texture of the board and so I just want to share with you a little bit of the things I liked and didn't like about my mixture of this concoction I'm calling it recipe I'm adding some teals some brighter teals on those leaves the leaves on the main sunflower actually very dark in value I have them really dark on some of those underneath parts in the back but I liked how they had some highlights that were more of cooler greens in the turquoise family but anyway some of the things that I liked about the surface was I do like a textured surface I like it gives a at the end of this painting it almost had an old world feel because of the texture one of the things I did not like about it was especially down towards the bottom the top parts I think I must have sanded it better at the top part of the board than I did at the bottom oh I love adding bits of purple in the sunflower head there but down towards the bottom it was even more textured again I probably didn't sand it enough I was anxious to try it you know have you ever done that so it was eating up more of my pastels down at the bottom and I shouldn't say it was doing it terribly but it's just not a technique I would want to use long term because these pastels get expensive you know so again on a positive note my new recipe is way better I found a neat way that's going to work for me quite well on the wood panels like this I'm going to do another one on the wood panel I haven't done that one as of the making of this video but I experimented on something I'll show you again I'm giving you all these little teasers to keep you staying till the end of the video I experimented on another wood surface because I didn't want to waste so much product you know like I used a lot of that pumice that dry pumice like six or seven tablespoon foals to make the original surface that I used to put on this board and so I wanted to downsize my my mixture just to play and experiment by the way I tried this exact mixture that I used on this painting I tried it on watercolor paper and then it was still rough but I took a piece of 800 I think it was 400 or 800 grit sandpaper sanded it down yes believe it or not on the watercolor paper I sanded it down just to knock off the roughness and it worked great so I might be sharing another video coming up soon all right I am going to show you the final painting and give you some more thoughts all right I've zoomed in here to hopefully allow you to see the texture again I like texture to a degree unless it's messing with your pastel supply so I enjoyed this creative process here's my resulting mess of pastels jaros terry Ludwig's Sennelier Great American all right here is the sneak peek at the other wood product that I used so Arteza actually sent me this set of 45 wood slices this is literally wood like from a branch of a tree and they're all very uniform and the bark is still surrounding them it's very fun so I thought instead of using a wood panel to experiment these are smaller and easier so I use these to play around with who finally come up with my concoction recipe that works great that top one didn't work as good as the second one the second one with the pink flowers here this is the new improved recipe that I'm going to do again and again and by the way these wood slices they would work great for gifts or Christmas ornaments even and stay tuned I have a product that I'm going to be using to hopefully help us not have to use glass and perhaps seal these wood paintings to display without framing wouldn't that be a miracle I can't wait to try all right my artistic friends I hope you are feeling the blessings of art during this trying time in our lives become a patron if you like and of course happy painting