 Welcome to Monet Café. Beautiful artistic friends and I am now continuing with my beginner series and this one is called Good Foundations. It's a little bit of an extension of the second video. I'm kind of using the same technique with these watercolor pencils to do an under painting and again that's really what I mean by good foundations. And under painting is an excellent way to build a foundation of strength and beauty for your painting. You know the Bible speaks of building your house on a rock and not on the sand and so that's one nice thing about an under painting is it gives you a great guide and a strong foundation to build upon. So join me as I create this little painting from a lovely photograph and it is from our very own Annette Meyer Atkins from our Monet Café art group. She has some beautiful photography in our photo reference library or album in our group. Now let me share with you some of the supplies that I'm using. For this particular painting I'm using a piece of sanded UART pastel paper. Many of you know about this paper already but if you do not have access to this paper, can't afford this paper, I have plenty of other methods in other videos of how you can make your own pastel surface and save a little bit of money. I will also once again be using these watercolor pencils made by Arteza. I share a lot. They send me products to review and so I experiment with them and I found out from this set they work great on UART paper. I am definitely going to be playing around with these more but for this particular painting you don't have to use watercolor pencils for your under painting. You can use watercolor, you can use pastels. There are various ways that you can get this what I call a warm under painting underneath your painting to to create the under painting. So you have multiple options. If you've watched many of my videos you know I use all kinds of different techniques so really kind of use what you have. Unless you want to get a set of these Arteza pencils they're relatively inexpensive and I can provide a link within the video for you to click if you'd like to get some. Here is my setup on my easel and I just have the once again the watercolor pencils. I'm showing here how I've chosen mostly warm colors from the color wheel. I do have a green that I use but I'm also I've got my UART paper taped up here. I think it's like a six by I'm sorry an eight by six size and I'm going again from the Notan or the Value Study that I did in video number one of the beginner series. It will be two videos before this one showing how it's a great idea to initially start out a value study working from your photograph. It basically gets a great beginning and it simplifies things and identifies the strong things about your painting to create a great composition. Okay go back and check out that video but these next videos that I'm doing I'm doing I think four or five of them from these notans from these little value studies and the difference in this why I'm calling it a beginner video is because I'm doing a lot of talking in it and I'm keeping it real time and the reason is I know you beginners you you like to hear what's going on it doesn't help you a lot if if I just speed it up and you just watch you know you need input. Does anybody remember that movie short circuit oh my gosh what a cute movie that was the little robot he was like input input that's how we are as young artists I think and so I'm using the darker one I used there first to get in the trees now I'm using that a little bit of a redder color or magenta color to get in some of those distant trees I know you probably can't see the original photograph very well and I will put a clickable link in the description section of this video if you want to use this photograph I did already ask Annette and she's she's good with that so that would be a way that you can actually follow along with me with the same photograph I have got to get my shaky easel taken care of I'm kicking it all the time now I'm adding a little bit more of that red on top of the magenta on top of the purple trees to kind of give it a little bit more depth and and vibrancy of color single colors are all often rather flat and boring so it's often a good idea to kind of give some layers of color for a real richness and a depth now I went a little lighter in value with this orange notice it's not as dark as that purple and the reason being is that things on the ground are typically lighter than trees that are vertical notice to that I'm doing strokes that indicate how the land is laying it's giving a little bit of energy and movement to that ground and also emulating that hill or that rolling hill structure I'm doing a few more darker tones in there to indicate you know maybe some grasses or some roots and you don't even have to get this nitpicky with an underpainting I just was having fun now I'm using a lighter value further in the distance because things lighten up in the distance if you've done one of these notans from the video to beginner videos ago you will know what I'm talking about when I'm talking about changing the values and and how it works in nature I'm adding notice in the photo I kind of wanted to keep that yellowy tone of the sky there down close to the horizon and I also wanted to really exaggerate how those clouds are just reaching towards the viewer like they're just heavy over your head and coming towards you and for the clouds I am using a darker value than the the yellow that's by the horizon notice in the reference image those clouds are pretty dark they're not quite as dark in value as the land the lands actually the land is darker in that reference photo than in a lot of reference images because it's more like evening or either early morning but the clouds are not quite as dark as the land but they they're still a pretty dark value so that's why I'm kind of using that pink again notice that all the colors I'm using here are from the warmer side of the color wheel reason being they make a beautiful underpainting especially when you're going to be laying down a lot of greens or blues they they almost create a little vibration effect and I love it when some of the underpainting is kind of peeking through not cover it all up with the green it just makes your painting energetic exciting and beautiful so I love a warm underpainting and that's kind of the goal here that I'm doing the difference in this video or this painting from the previous video where I did do a painting using the same kind of technique is I didn't put in any of the the darker really dark colors in this or a lot of other colors and you're going to see how it affects as I add this alcohol like the last one I'm using alcohol here to blend in this under painting you could use water I like alcohol because it dries faster and you're going to see why I'm loving this technique so much when you add the alcohol it really just makes the colors really pop okay so this is the fun part and one of the main things I like to stress about an underpainting is to keep it loose and flowy if it drips and moves around a bit in unexpected places just kind of go with it you know as long as you've got the the core or the the basics of it pretty correct the worst thing you can do is get too tight too quickly I do again I focus a lot on make that energy like those clouds bring them forward make that land have some sweeping motion to it and break out of the boundaries of the trees being so tight I still need to loosen up even more I feel like I am just still a budding growing artist myself but just definitely focus on having fun and keeping it loose alright I'll add a little music for the rest of the underpainting which isn't long and I'll come back in for some commentary when I start adding the pastels okay now for the pastel application and if you hear some bumping around that would be my dog and cat in the studio running around playing with each other it's so cute some of you may remember the little kitty I rescued from literally my front yard I named her Dusty because she likes hanging out in my studio and no I don't let her breathe my pastel dust thank you all you wonderful pet owners out there and cat lovers I keep her safe when I'm painting I don't have her in the studio and she basically adopted my dog as her mom she even tried to nurse him and he was very she'd grab a little piece of skin or fur under his belly and he was very tolerant of that blesses her but they're goofing off in my studio right now and if you hear some music it's my husband outside playing his music why he while he tries to build us a garage we're still getting things together and trying to build things after the flooding of our house in 2017 home but let me get back to talking about pastels so enough of that I will talk about what I'm doing here but real quickly I wanted to share a little bit about the varieties of pastels I'm using a lot for this painting some of the Jiro pastels that I had reviewed a few videos back I do love these pastels but I do realize that they're great because they're not too hard not too soft they're very versatile they're a great pastel for beginners however I realized they are expensive all pastels are expensive so I had a great suggestion from one of our viewers or subscribers here on YouTube and a comment and she asked if I could do a video where I share exactly the pastels I'm using and that would be hard with my studio set because they're all kind of intermingled I'd have to go okay oh this one's a unison and what color is it and so I thought what a great excuse to buy a new set of pastels so I thought I'd buy a set of some that are good for beginners and more affordable those would be either rim brands that was my first set of pastels was some rim brands they're fairly hard on the hard soft scale for pastels but they are more affordable and I also always recommend getting half sticks when you can a lot of companies sell sets that instead of a whole stick they sell a half stick you can get twice the amount of pastels for the same money so rim brand I believe does this and the disadvantage about rim brands is they are harder so harder pastels typically aren't the best to put on at the end of a painting they don't have the the buttery or brilliance and color that the softer ones do so once you get a lot of layers on harder pastels just don't show up as good typically they're great for blending though if like when I did the underpainting at the beginning of this I could have used a harder pastel such as a new pastel in you pastel or rim brand and just kind of blocked in with some of those warm colors and even use the watercolor or I mean the sorry the water or the alcohol or just blend it in so they work great for that another good beginner set is Mount Vision you get a fairly large pastel for the money I don't think they sell them in has half sticks but they're pretty affordable and they're not as hard as rim brand but they're they're soft not some of the softest ones but they're really great beginner set too and it's so great because I happen to have Mount Vision pastel right in my backyard I've done a video that's on if you go in the past videos it's been a while but I actually did a tour of their facility and met the owner and he was nice enough to make some pastels for us and show us all the different sets so that's a really great set too so I'm going to try to buy a set of pastels and use exclusively that set showing you the colors and everything leading you through a really really good beginner video okay now let me get to what I'm actually doing here you see that I've laid started laying down some color for the clouds I went ahead and went with that blue a little bit of blue a little bit of purple they weren't too different in value that's kind of a neat way to work with clouds to you don't want to go real stark differences in value I did want to keep that yellow way background right over the horizon kind of light shining but you want to reflect that up even higher in the sky too so that's why I have some of that yellow if you look at the reference photo you can see there is a little bit of that yellow showing through it's going to do that okay it's also going to reflect down on the land a little bit too so I'm just basically focusing more on value than anything right now oh and now when I point out I'm using a lot of you ask it's just a piece of pipe foam insulation and it's great for blending I've heard people say they also use pool noodles you know those long noodley looking things kids play with in the pools I've heard those are good for blending but this can the pipe foam insulation can be bought it if you're in the states Lowe's or Home Depot but most hardware stores I think it's literally used to insulate your pipes if you're in cold weather so or for other purposes so I'm blending the clouds because I wanted to take that chunkiness away from the strokes and clouds usually are kind of wispy but I just kind of turn it and move it and again I'm trying to keep those clouds looking like they're coming towards us that's kind of the energy and the momentum of the painting but see how adding that little bit of pink in there with it just kind of kept that consistency that I've got going with the underpainting there alright so now I'm going to work on my darks we know the trees anything vertical is typically darker and so I'm going to get my darkest dark in and then I'm going to use a little bit of different colors instead of just one dark color for the trees I mean obviously I'm going to come back in later and add maybe some I don't I can't remember if I even had any greens on this one at the end because this is more of an evening scene those trees are really far away the Sun is behind them so we're kind of seeing the dark side of the trees but I still add a few more colors so that it's not just that you know one kind of flat boring color and getting the darks in early on is really good I've already got not totally my lightest lights but but close with some of those colors if you notice the scene is if you look at the photograph it's a pretty dark scene again either evening or early morning and the lightest thing if you squint your eyes is obviously that horizon skyline right there above the above the horizon okay now is where I'm adding in some of those pinks again I really like to play around with color a lot of you guys have probably noticed that and I don't always do like the typical greens and blues and all of that and you can get creative with color if you get value right now I'm incorporating some of that it's a as you can see when I when I put it down in the foreground you can see actually it is quite dark it didn't look quite as dark on top of that dark color I used on the trees but you want to go ahead if you have a color go ahead and use it wherever else you can in the painting now I'm adding some of those background trees I'm exaggerating this you don't see it as much in the photograph but in the photograph you can even see those trees real far away they're a lot lighter in value than the foreground trees but in art sometimes we accentuate these things for impact and for beauty now I'm using a little bit of a darker blue again this is evening or morning whatever it's where the sun is behind all of these things so we're getting the cooler colors again I apologize for my bouncy easel and next time before I paint I need to put a note on my easel saying fix me before you do another video all right now I wanted to go ahead and intensify that orange again borrowing Karen Margulis's expression laying down some dirt your greens are gonna look much better if you put some dirt down underneath them you know and you just think of it like a garden you know so see already that's just got nice moody feel to it all right I'm getting I know the land has some some lines in it I guess that's the right word for grasses that are growing so I'm just getting a little more of that dark it's gonna make that foreground feel closer and the background feel further by adding some darks in the foreground so I'm just continue now you notice I'm getting finally getting to the greens here and they're gonna be much more interesting because of the colors that I've laid down underneath and by the way I am keeping a light touch I get a little lighter when I lighter with my touch when I move back in a painting because the values are typically a little bit lighter I don't press quite as hard now I really liked you can't see it as good here there were some of these greens that looked a little more brilliant in the photograph and it was like some of that yellow from the this clouds in the sky was kind of reflecting down on the grass a little bit and that was just like a really neat grassy green color there and and a little more blues and things in the clouds here and I think I'm just gonna let you guys watch a little bit I didn't want to say sometimes I add a little bit more energy by making more linear strokes in the clouds I in other words I kind of blend them to begin with and then I may make a few more squiggly marks you know to kind of show some of the edges you don't want to overdo that so you guys enjoy while I paint a bit more and I will pop back in for some comments towards the end often at the end of the painting or a painting I like to add a little pizzazz color I never like to overdo the color but just a little hint of something like this bright pink just a little bit here and there just makes some interest you know and I wanted to point out that I'm using there's a little teeny sliver of a background field almost behind that hill and it needs to be a little bit of a lighter value because it's further away and it needs to be cooler in color temperatures so I just cooled off that green that was in the foreground and used more of a little bit of a turquoise color and I think I just add a few hints here and there so I'm getting ready to wrap this up but I wanted to tell you guys I am so grateful for many of you are commenting that you would love to support this channel and I can't tell you how much that blesses me I it is hard I'll be honest it is hard for me to bring these videos often you guys know about just life challenges but financially sometimes it's a little challenging many of you know my computer crashed not too long ago I just had to buy a new MacBook Pro there's so many ideas and things I have in mind that I want to do to improve the videos one of them is a new type of lighting for the studio and all those things add up so when you guys say things about wanting to support the channel it blesses me so many of you have got a suggestion of I can't really do any more time with a patreon account to give more time but I might create one that just allows people who want to support to support so we'll see about that give me your comments on that I'd love to hear what you think about that always I want to try to keep the videos free but maybe voluntary support would be okay so thank you guys for making Monet cafe so special for me and as always happy painting