 Welcome to Monet Café. I'm artist Susan Jenkins. I think you're gonna really like this lesson And if you haven't already please subscribe to this channel for a lot of fun and art is definitely better with friends In this lesson, I'll be sharing the benefits of using an alcohol wash with soft pastel I've had a request for doing another alcohol wash video tutorial and also this particular painting Had a lot of people really waiting for this tutorial, so it should be a lot of fun I'm first just using a piece of vine charcoal also called willow charcoal I like to get in a really loose and painterly sketch I'm working on a piece of you art sanded paper This little sketch part is sped up But I am gonna have a lot of real time in this especially when I do the alcohol wash This was actually a preliminary painting for a much larger commissioned piece. I'm doing I usually like to do a preliminary work before Committing to a larger painting project. Also, I apologize for not having a reference image here But I did a lot of this out of imagination. I had some reference images I kind of looked at for guidance, but I was working with the Client for some concepts So once again a lot of it was kind of out of imagination and now I've just got a piece of this was a terry Ludwig I believe a nice purple and I'm just getting in some of the values of the tree lines I talk about the basics of this a lot where vertical things are typically darker in value and Horizontal things like grasses fields are typically lighter in value now I'm still using even though I know the rules of value that things get lighter in the distance I'm still using this terry Ludwig pastel because we can get our darks down first And I can add lighter values on top of that tree line now I'm going ahead and incorporating this purple as a little Trail that sort of kind of leads the eye in all of this pretty much gets covered up But the value is still there usually showing underneath and kind of pulls the eye in and at this point I am going to apply some of the alcohol for this alcohol wash And in this particular painting I did it in stages. You'll see what I mean So I'm I'm using my alcohol. This is just regular alcohol you would get at the Drugstore I'm using a paper towel and just a brush. I like to try to use a wider brush if possible I find that it lends more towards a painterly look than using a small bristle brush and I typically put enough alcohol on my brush so that it is Pretty wet. I don't want it so wet that it's just Totally saturating the paper, but I do kind of like it being a little runny This application right here was a little bit drier than I like and now I added a little more alcohol And you'll see I actually do a stroke kind of from beneath and you see kind of that liquid and how it's even kind of Dripping and I'm fine with that as long as just not pouring off the paper or anything So don't be afraid to have a bit more alcohol than you might think and and don't freak out if it starts to drip or run You can use that to your favor as you'll see me do in a minute, and I'm literally once I get my basic Elements in with the alcohol. I actually start using it like paint I'm I've got a paint brush and what happens with pastel when you add alcohol or water is it becomes paint It's the same medium that's In acrylic paint or oil paint all paints are kind of similar except for the binders That hold them together and so pastels really become like paint when you add liquid to them so now you can see how I am I it's still very wet and I'm adding or reducing the amount of alcohol Based on how dark or light I want something to be and when I have like just then I kind of used some of that darker in the trail and brought it back up into that middle ground grasses and So once again, you're kind of using the the pastels that are on the paper like your paint palette and The more you do this the better you get I remember when I was first starting with pastel. I used to be just amazed at the confidence of artists I'm like, oh my gosh, I would really overthink that and have to slow down and But start with like little practice pieces before you jump into something serious now You can see again how I'm grabbing some of that Color or value from the areas that are darker and I'm using it to kind of get a value study in there That's really all this is at this point It's just a value study and notice how gestural it feels that part was a little bit too drippy So I'm I'm kind of you know reinforcing the darks there and so Really, that's all it is is you get a loose sketch in get you some value down and Then just play around with the alcohol and use it like your painting And here you'll see how I am doing the alcohol wash in stages So I first got down my value study my sketch and my value study and now I'm gonna work on what's typically called a complementary underpainting meaning if you've got a lot of Greens and blues and things in your landscape Then you can use the complement or actually the color that's just Opposite of the greens and blues on the color world, which is warm tones So I'm using a combination of oranges yellows and reds Basically as another value study now I also knew that I wanted a little hint of warmth in the sky for the final result I do end up cooling it off a lot more before it's done But it still has that little somewhat of a glow behind it So these yellows and oranges are gonna help with that also to notice how I'm putting some oranges down I'm kind of carving into the tree line just a little bit. I'm later gonna do this Even more as I establish the painting, but now I'm just going to Get some alcohol to an alcohol wash on this now I'm using a smaller brush here and I guess I could have used my larger brush But I was trying to be a bit more careful about it not just dripping so much down into the tree line And also to a common question I get is why do you do an underpainting if you cover it all up? Well, first of all, I typically don't cover it all up and Some of it does kind of peek through now. I have seen times I think I've probably done it before that I pretty much did cover it all up But also usually it does it influences a couple of things it influences our mood and It also influences the color that we put on top of it It really does make a difference Rather than just working on the color of the paper in this case just that light creamy surface so I have found over the years that I love doing an underpainting and It you feel more like an artist, I think and you just playing with color and having fun and to me art is about painting is about light and color and So why not have fun with it, you know now notice here I am using the red that I'm using in the foreground typically Color temperature gets warmer in the foreground and cooler in the background But in this case, I was imagining the background field getting illuminated a little bit by the sky and Even though I cool it off later and some of the foreground is like a hill That's curving down to the viewer. So it's a little bit in shadow. So that's why I put a little bit of the cooler reds into The foreground and also, you know, they're going to be cooler if they're down deeper into the grasses so I'm still doing this alcohol underpainting in stages and I've done this before but I don't think I've I've actually made a video where I Section things off the way I'm doing now as with the underpainting and I like working this way because I feel like I have more control I often like to share that some of these initial underpainting stages when you're getting loose The point is to stay loose, but you can sort of lose confidence in yourself because you're like Oh, this just looks like a mess and a lot of artists call this the teenager or the adolescent stage and It's actually a good thing. It's loose. It's impressionistic. It's what you're building upon So we have to resist the urge to get too tight and too detailed too soon This is like the good foundation of a house, you know, you have to have If you want it to have a loose painterly feel you got to have that as the beginning now I am going to speed this up a little bit at this point or soon But I wanted to share I've got two darker pastels this one. It's it looks like it's black It's not I think it's either a really dark purple or dark green But I am re-establishing my darks notice how everything you may have noticed earlier It looked really dark when I applied the alcohol, but that's because it was wet now. It's dried You see the purple, you know, it's the color that of the pastel But I'm getting these the foreground trees are gonna have the darkest darks and then the trees are gonna Gradually lightening value. That's why I'm using that little bit of a lighter value green still dark because it's a vertical object And I'm putting a little bit of that green to create harmony in the darker value trees Now I'm doing the same thing in this visual trail. I'm re-establishing kind of that dark Underground roots and trail for some of these flowers. They're gonna be on top of it I often like to try to think of things in painting as working from the ground up I think that's a really good way to think about things because often we have a tendency to focus too much on the things That are on the surface before building those values in the underground foundation So once again using some of the same colors there with the dark and the green in that trail it establishes harmony I always say if I have a pastel in my hand, I try to incorporate it It's kind of like practical. You've already got it in your hand. Why not use it in other places? But it also creates a connectivity and a harmony throughout your painting now. I'm using a little purple I know that there's gonna be some cooler areas once again that Hill kind of rolls towards us. So it's a little cooler. It's further away from the Sun and Now that is one of the blues that I am gonna be using for these flowers They have this electric blue feel. I got a lot of great responses and Feedback I guess you could say from when I shared the painting and I think it had to do with the way I use this blue and I'll talk a little bit more about that. So this is still I think this is real time here still But I know that field back there It's gonna have some of the blue flowers Going back into the distance and I did once again want to cool it off a little bit It was a little warm with that underpainting. I do add some greens on top of it And I'm still playing with the values and the trees, but just so you know in that back field I'm gonna have a stream carving through it my client wanted a She shared with me a lot of my previous paintings that she loved and one of the things she loved was one painting that I had with these bright purplish blue flowers in the foreground and she also Likes paintings that have little streams carving through them So I was a little bit in the quandary because you don't want to have too many focal points in your painting But I thought you know what? I think I can very subtly create a stream in the background that won't compete with the flowers in the foreground So that was my goal now. I'm using a piece of pipe foam insulation if you've watched my videos much I use this a lot. I got this technique. I don't know if this is where she got it but the first time I heard it was from artist Karen Margulis and it's really one of the best little tools you can use for Blending and I don't always use it But when you want to create some mood or soften things up a little bit more of an impressionistic feel It's a good strategy. Now. You notice. I'm using it like I do You know how I mentioned with the paintbrush using it when I was doing the alcohol under wash or under painting I use it almost like a paintbrush here. I'm using directional strokes Notice how I turn it and sometimes I use it right right here I use it more energetically and then as I get to the background I use it a bit more precisely and now I have my under painting ready and I will start applying the color that I Imagine for the final painting. This is the stage where I mentioned I would cool off the sky and The neat thing about pastels is that they start to blend themselves. That's one of the things I remember early on is that I had a propensity to blend things too quickly or want to make them look finished too quickly and With pastels and I think with many other mediums we Learn as we paint and get more experience that the stages embrace these stages Just let them happen naturally. Don't force them Don't try to finish too soon or get too much detail too soon and often I mentioned this quite a bit when I'm painting I have the advantage of looking back while I'm Video taping these and I get to see how much I liked things when they were a bit unfinished so so don't get stressed if Things look a little Unfinished at first and just let it be and just gradually work the whole painting. That's another Recommendation I have is work the overall painting. Don't get too crazy in one area That's definitely something that I've gotten better at over time now. I'm using the pipe foam insulation again Notice how the sky is starting to cool off Notice how it's not so intense with that orange and that yellow But it's still got a little bit of that glow beneath it or behind it And it's going to start to feel like it's a you know, the Sun is setting but there's still a coolness to the sky and Also, too I brought a little bit of that color over as sky holes behind the trees But keep in mind that things get darker with sky holes in the background You don't want to keep them too light or they look artificial now I am lightening some of these background trees Remember how I said you can put down some darker values at first and you can lighten them The beauty of pastels is we can layer things so now I'm giving the illusion that things are further away with Lighter values, but I'm making sure my greens that I'm using aren't too warm Temperatures get cooler in the distance now. I'm going ahead and since I have that cooler green in my hand I know the grasses behind these trees that are in the foreground They're going to be cooler. They're in the shadow. They're further away from the Sun And so I wouldn't want to put a really warm yellowy green there. And so I'm just Gradually working this painting Keep in keeping in mind all of the rules I've learned over the years that if you're a novice or brand new at this That you'll learn if you keep at it Sadly, there's no shortcut to this. Okay, and I found that you've just got to keep practicing The biggest gift you can have is determination and a will to persevere and if you do you will Gradually just get better as an artist, but I always encourage you have fun during the journey. I I probably was way more frustrated early on than I should have been So I always try to encourage people just enjoy it, you know It's not going to look perfect at first and here's where I'm adding that Concept of a stream. So I'm using a little bit of a teal I've got some of those teals in the sky and I know I'm going to have some reflections in that water But notice I didn't get crazy about having to get the water in just so now I'm going to keep this real time for a bit notice I'm not speeding this part up, but towards the end. I will speed it up a bit and the painting actually didn't take much more than a maybe an hour and a half and I've really enjoyed this process I do have a bit of my classical music playing in the background So I hope YouTube doesn't have a problem with that, but I'm going to add a little bit of Music on top of it right here. I don't think it'll make a problem But that way you'll be able to still hear a little bit of the scratchy sounds of the pastel on top of the u-art paper I love those sounds. So enjoy the rest of this. I'll be back at the end stay tuned Make sure if you haven't subscribed you subscribe to this channel. You like this video you comment and We have a lot of fun here If you haven't become a patron of mine and you'd like to it supports this channel it really helps me to keep these free videos coming and There's a lot of people who really rely on free resources that are all over the world They don't have any other option So I love to be able to offer these things to people all over the world So it's five dollars a month to become a patron you also get extra instruction You become part of a great community of some awesome artists of all levels lots of beginners That are my patrons. So all right guys enjoy the music and I'll be back for some commentary on the blue Flowers the electric blue flowers that I know everybody loved in this painting. So hang in there. I'll be back soon Here's where I begin adding the concept of these flowers. Now, I'm not sure of the name of these flowers They're just the ones that have these tall Buds that kind of stretch out long and they're usually very vibrant blue and purple And I love the lyrical feel that they had Like I said, I did Mostly this from a concept in my mind, but I did use some blue flowers as a reference and Notice how I'm adding a darker version of the same Mark making, you know, and I'm not Taking every flower and reproducing it like I see it. I'm using the suggestion of the flower You know, I'm real estate. They say location location location with painting. It's Suggestion suggestion suggestion. That's just something I've come up with myself to remember that I don't have to spell everything out I can suggest things and learn the rules of how nature has a beautiful spontaneity and I think we can learn a lot from just observing nature and seeing how there is an order to things But there's a spontaneous beauty as well I often think of just how the wind blows things in a disarray But beautiful perfection at the same time and now I'm going to show you a little close-up now Notice how vibrant this blue looks. This is just a Sennelier blue pastel I wish I remembered the number of it, but it looks so vibrant I think because here's where I did miss some footage here. I apologize But I think it looks so vibrant because I purposely didn't let it be overwork Notice how the rest of the painting has sort of a soft feel. It's very Blended by its own Layering, you know, I haven't done towards the end a lot of blending other than the initial stages of the pipe foam Insulation I'm letting now the pastels blend themselves the sky. I wanted very soft. I didn't want it to compete with the flowers I definitely wanted those flowers to be the attention grabber, but that stream I felt just pulled the eye back and that warmth in the sky. Can you see now how there is? Still a bit of that under painting showing through so now I'll add the music back again But watch as I work and I'm just Suggesting these flowers Some of them are a bit more blue some are a bit more purple I typically like to put the dark values down first not always as in the the bright blue ones to the right there but now I'm incorporating some of those teals and other colors in the background to give some interest and Color harmony so now I'm going to start working some of the greens more of the flowers and at this point I'm having fun. This is probably my favorite stage of a painting Especially when I'm feeling good about where it's headed Also noticed to you see some of that warmth underneath the foreground flowers You see that under painting still showing through so it definitely does influence the overall work If I had done this painting without any under painting It would have been too cool in my opinion and by the way, I will be recreating this painting in a larger format I'll probably film the process. I have to apologize When I get to painting crazy and having fun sometimes I forget my hair is getting in the way I don't have it tied back very well. So again, enjoy this process. I'll be back at the end and Pay attention to how I'm carving out things with the grasses and the flowers. All right, I'll be back And here is the final normally I say this painting is available in my Etsy shop, but it already sold So I do have prints and other products available of it. So thanks for being with me I enjoyed this moment with you and happy painting You