 Welcome to Monet Cafe. I'm artist Susan Jenkins. I really think you're going to love this tutorial where I'm going to be using wax pastels to create a loose beginning for this almost Monet-esque type of painting. If you haven't subscribed, I hope you will. Click that little bell icon too. Now here's a little behind the scenes. Sometimes you don't see what really happens. I, yeah, literally I'm using some weights to hold up my arm that's holding my second camera so you guys can get a sneak peek at my pastels while I paint. Now I have to give a quick shout-out to my patrons from my Patreon page, patreon.com slash Susan Jenkins. Their $5 a month really helps to support this channel. Keep these free videos coming where I can share with you products like this and tutorials. These are the neocolor wax pastels. Now they look like coloring crayons, right? But you're gonna see them perform like magic. I'll be talking about those more soon. Also the reference photo is from Vivienne Chase Debrille. Part of the Monet Cafe Art Group family on Facebook. I'll talk about that more too. The brushes I'll be using. One is a Chinese watercolor brush but you could use any brush that you have. I have some paper towels handy. You'll see how I use those as well. Oh and I have my cup of tea. This is Earl Gray Tea. It just really sets the mood. The surface I'll be using is a water-friendly surface. You want to make sure you have a water-friendly surface if you're doing this along with me. And I've only used this twice. I love it. It's a sanded surface. It's called Luxe Archival and you can see on here excellent support for all dry mediums. And then it's a white surface so you can apply your own color and it makes translucent colors shine with brilliance. It's very durable and I really love it. It is similar to UART paper but it's white. You know UART paper is a little bit more creamy. Alright well let's get to these magical wax pastels. Once again they look a lot like crayons. I'm only speeding this up a little bit here. You're gonna get a little bit of real time and a little bit of sped up time in this just so I can keep the video size manageable. But this color that I've chosen is the darkest in the set. Now I'm flipping back and forth between you seeing my pastels and the reference image. The editing program I use won't let me have two photos in it until I switch to another editing program that's a bit more advanced and I just haven't taken the time to play around with that one. So that will be coming hopefully soon. Now this is another color I have chosen. It is like a teal. It's kind of a dark teal color and you can't really tell as I'm applying these that there is a difference in color and it really doesn't come to life until you add water. This looks rather boring right? So what I'm doing here is I break them and I'm turning them on their sides very similar to how I work with my pastels. And you can see that this probably you can see that this has a sanded surface. You can almost see the little granular look to it. Now what I'm doing here I'm really just getting in kind of a value study. The area that I'm working on if you look at the reference photo you can see there's almost like a reflection of perhaps some willow trees or some kind of trees along the bank that you can see them. It's that real Monet type of look when you can see all the beautiful reflections in the water. It becomes really a main part of the composition. There's a lot going on in this photo but I really just loved it. So I decided to give it a go and I was happy with the results. So all I'm really doing right now is looking at the shape of these kind of upside down tree branches hanging down and I'm going to continue to use these wax pastels to really just get big shapes. It's what I preach all the time. Typically we get so fussy with detail when we're first beginning and we forget we don't need to do that. Get in your big shapes first and that's one of the beautiful things about a loose underpainting like this is that it really establishes a super loose drippy watery translucent underpainting with gorgeous color. Now if you don't have wax pastels for this you can do the same thing. You could use a watercolor paper and watercolor. You could use any type of pastel paper that's water friendly. You could literally do the same thing with pastels. You've probably seen many of my videos on grabbing another color here. This is a little bit of a lighter bluish teal and again you're not going to be able to see the color subtle differences until I add the water but once again you could use pastel the same way and just apply water or alcohol. Pastel turns into paint when you wet it and it's really a very versatile medium. You could use goodness I've done gouache as an underpainting. You could thin down acrylic paint or even oil paint. I've done that before too. So the sky is the limit as far as under paintings but one thing I really love about this and the wax pastels and the video I did I think it was just prior to this where I used the Derwent Ink Tense Blocks. They're literally compressed ink. They go on you know like a dry medium and then when you add the water they just truly come to life. Now I'm going to play around with that lighter color in a minute. I'm reserving that white area. You can see in the reference photo how there's an area that's really white. That's the highest contrast is where that white meets the dark. You know there's kind of dark surrounding it. And so I'm leaving it kind of open there and when I get to actually painting I'm going to tell you a way that I would have done it differently if I did it again which I definitely will do this again. And now time for the magic to happen. This is just water. I have used these wax pastels with alcohol before. Now this watercolor I'm sorry this Chinese watercolor brush I love it. It's just got such a big brush portion and I like to turn it on its side and kind of do a little bit of a almost like a areas or like a dry brush technique where it kind of skips across some areas. Now this is pretty wet right here so I don't get a lot of that technique in this part. Now I'm not even worried about these drips. Let it drip. I mean you don't want to be nuts and just splash water all over the place but it's okay. Now that area I'm working on right there is that little bit of lighter blue and this is basically kind of a drippy value study. You see some areas are a little bit darker and it's very subtle the differences but I chose these teal colors. I don't know I just really felt a coolness to this photograph. It's like an underlying coolness like it might have been cloudy overcast. And it also had a lot of green in it a lot of that warmth and it didn't have a lot of blue sky color. Now typically if I had a lot of blue sky in a landscape I usually would choose maybe a warmer color for an underpainting but this really didn't have much blue in it so I thought it'd be a nice beautiful color. Now I'm working on that area that is the reflection of the I think of them as like weeping willow trees whatever they are they they look really impressionistic and lovely and you may be thinking oh my gosh this is just a mess and it may appear that way but it really does allow me to start a painting with a real impressionistic loose beginning and it also gets me more loose and ready to create things that are not so fussy and tight. Now this little area I did use a little bit of a lighter or more of a turquoisey color in this you might be able to see the subtle color differences here. This is kind of that reflection in the water that's in the background. If you look at the reference image there's some distant trees then there's like a little dark waterline and then there's an area of dark it's like the reflection of those trees or bushes coming down from that. So I'm going ahead and establishing these values. Now here's the area that this is already dry. This is where I told you don't do what I did here. I forgot that actually when you add water after the fact to this it will create it's in watercolor it's called a bloom and it's not that big a deal here because this is an underpainting and I will be applying pastel but in hindsight I should have put this down at the same time and just kind of been a little careful about this area. I didn't want it to be solid white. I rarely leave a paper white to work on so here's where you're going to see where I'm adding the water. It is definitely a lighter color but see how that water went up into the top and creates those little blooms and again it's not a big deal it totally doesn't even make a difference when I start adding the pastels but if that bothers you apply everything at one time rather than going back and adding water unless you don't care like I don't care. So this is I don't have my pastels as a split image in here or insert because this is not from the set that I'm using I am going to be talking about the set but this is the famous Terry Ludwig dark color called eggplant it's just a really great dark and what I'm doing I'm looking at my reference image where would you say the darkest darks are in the reference image. They are those distant trees and those reflections of the willow trees are also pretty dark and in the upper left corner there you see those distant trees in the back and then the reflection from those trees is also pretty dark. There are a lot of things in this that are rather subtle and we want to keep them that way. Where would you say the focal point is? Well of course it's these gorgeous flowers that are just absolutely beautiful but to me the focal point was mostly that light area where the flowers are reaching up right in the lightest area. Now I've popped the image up here now of my pastels. This is the Sennelier I love this brand of pastels Paris collection. I keep this set together I don't incorporate it into my studio palette because I like this set so much it's pretty much all-inclusive and I can do a lot of paintings with just this set adding very few other pastels to it. So what I my little system here is I put my pastels up that I use and I actually had already done this painting as a smaller version and so that's why you're seeing a lot of the pastels kind of sticking up and I apologize I I tried to do an autofocus lock so that it it doesn't keep trying to focus on my arm right above the pastel portion there so it didn't work obviously but let me know if you guys if you can even see if this helps that I put this other image in here of the pastels and I am going to be my patrons you guys my patrons get special goodies because they're paying five dollars extra a month and it really does help I tell you what I try hard not to do a personal saga but I tell you what this has been a rough year for my husband and myself and my family and the patreon support has been a huge blessing so thank you patrons so on that note my patrons are going to get a photo of my color notes the actual pastels that I used and some extra goodies so as you can see here I'm still doing a basic value study now I've moved to a neutral it's kind of like a gray medium dark blue and I'm just going in there and adding some of these grasses now back to the values distant trees you can see it's pretty dark back there upper left side the willow trees are dark but those foreground grasses now if you squint your eyes it's one of the lighter things other than the flowers in this photo other than the water the lightest light is going to be that water and the reflection of the water but those grasses are pretty light so why would I be putting in this kind of darker these darker values well it's because these grasses the lighter values of the grasses have to have something dark to rest upon for them to show up it's it's contrast so that's why I'm getting a little bit dark down first it's like the roots of these things now what am I doing now I am using a little piece of pipe foam insulation people use various tools to blend with but this is going to get me kind of that moody effect I've already got that gorgeous neo color wax pastels as that it almost feels watery doesn't it the underpainting and now I'm blending this first initial layer of values with this pipe foam insulation to also create that soft moody effect especially for these reflections you know water is going to be a little bit soft and blended because it's water alright things are diffused a little bit in the water but now I'm just blending it all in and you can see now that it's starting to come together can you kind of see the values in place similar to the reference image now I don't have all the colors in place but if you squint your eyes look at the reference image and look at what I've established so far you kind of get an idea of what's going on I'm not sure if you can see in the reference image there's a subtle shade of magenta that's going on in some of those distant trees in the upper left and it's reflecting down on the water and I really liked it I thought it connected the painting with some of those purpley pink flowers and you may be thinking well why are you adding that down in the grasses often if you combine different colors of your dark values your painting becomes more alive and more interesting you don't want to over blend them together but they start to play upon each other so I decided to kind of incorporate it in a few areas of this painting to connect it with this beautiful magenta color and for the next few minutes you'll see me continuing to establish this really soft moody impressionistic still considered an underpainting of sorts even on top of the wax pastels that I've applied because this is still the base before I start adding detail a very common question that I get and I know a lot of other artists who have YouTube channels and teaching platforms is I want to loosen up how do I loosen up well this is a way to loosen up is to start an underpainting that's really loose and moody to begin with and continue to work on big shapes colors and values before you even think about the detail if I started getting caught up on these flowers right now I would lose this loose energy that's going on so I'm often thinking of painting well it is in layers you know we paint in layers with pastels but everything is like layering on like a icing on a cake you've got to first get your ingredients of course that's your pastels and all of your supplies but then you have to use those supplies or ingredients to make your cake and this is what I think of as you're making the foundation for your painting you certainly couldn't apply icing to a cake before you've made it so that's why I like to say focus on your details and the icing that's on the cake towards the end and that's really going to help you to have a painting that doesn't appear overworked or over fussy and trust me I have to resist the urge to get too detailed too soon and I say this often but having the advantage of going back and looking at my painting process because I have so many videos on YouTube I'm able to see that I still overwork my paintings you know it's definitely something we have to to watch and check ourselves on and one of the best things you can do is walk away from your painting maybe give yourself a time limit and step away so that you can come back with fresh eyes now see I'm really loving this phase right here don't you see all these gorgeous colors and it's I mean it's really has more that needs to be done but it's getting that real impressionistic Monet feeling to it and this is the point to where if you are a patron of mine you're going to get the extended content and extra commentary from this point on I'm gonna be talking to my patrons about my negative painting about how to get those flowers to look like they're popping off the page and lots of other interesting and practical painting techniques so if you are not a patron you'd like to be of course you can do that it's five dollars a month like I said you can cancel at any time but I have a lot of other special content on my patreon page already so there's just a plethora of material on there already and my patrons it's such a neat group we have like a family I have more communication with you guys because it doesn't have quite so many people like the Monet cafe art group on Facebook that's got over 13,000 members way to go everyone thank you and of course it's because of my patrons that I'm able to keep bringing these free lessons right here on the Monet cafe YouTube channel because I know there are so many people all over the world who do not have access or even maybe the financial means to be able to learn about art and painting so thank you patrons and I'm sure all you guys who need the free content appreciate that too all right guys here's some lovely music and I will be back so please keep watching also be sure to hit the like button for this video if you like it it really does help with the YouTube standings also find me on Instagram at Susan Jenkins artist if you recreate from any of my tutorials I love it when you guys have been tagging me I get to see your creations so you can tag me at Susan Jenkins artist find me on Facebook my Facebook personal page is the art of Susan Jenkins you can find me and follow me there and of course you can become a member of the Monet cafe art group on Facebook you just have to answer a few questions so so many ways you can learn and experience art together with friends that's the whole concept of Monet cafe anyway all right here's that lovely music and I will be back at the end so enjoy yeah I zoomed in here a bit because I wanted to show you this little glazing notice how I'm just little horizontal very soft touch I have here to give the impression of that water having a little bit of a reflection this is the fun part where I'm getting in the flowers and now some of these wispy grasses I'm using some Prismacolor new pastels these are harder pastels they're really great for adding some linear marks and I have not over layered this painting by the way I didn't run out of any tooth on this this Luxe archival paper is awesome and you know I I feel like I didn't just overwork this painting so it still had a lot of tooth to the painting I was able to add the grasses very easily and oh my goodness I really enjoyed this one I loved the reference photo it just drew me in as soon as I saw it and I've got so many that I've had my eye on that I can't wait to paint more so here is the final I really did like this painting I will have it available in my Etsy shop if you create from this tutorial I would love to see it whether it's in the homework album for my patrons in our Monet cafe art group on Facebook on Instagram tag me at Susan Jenkins artist please like this video comment and subscribe if you haven't already all right be blessed and happy painting