 Hello artist newcomers, subscribers, and friends. I'm artist Susan Jenkins and welcome to Monet Café. I hope you enjoyed today's video and also I hope you'll subscribe to keep more videos coming your way. I am very excited to be bringing you this video where I will demonstrate that yes, you can paint on canvas with soft pastels. So here we go. Let's get started. So this discovery was made when my husband and I were in Mississippi going to get his mother who has terminal cancer. We are now home in Tampa and boy, it's nice to be out of that snow. But even though our landscape and situation seemed very bleak and cold, I find God is usually working something for the good that you just can't see yet. While we were snowed in, I did get some painting time, but my supplies were fairly limited since I had to pack quickly on my trip to Mississippi. Fortunately, while helping to move things out of my mother-in-law's home, I stumbled across some canvas panels that were good quality and archival. So I decided, hmm, I've never had success with painting on canvas with pastels, but I had an idea. So in this lesson, I'll be giving you my technique for painting with pastels on canvas and it worked quite well. This is the reference photo I'll be using that I just fell in love with the long shadows. I decided to put this photo in a photo app that I recently found and I love to give it some variety color pizzazz. I often like doing this with my photos to get inspired. The name of the app is Arto Matan. I think I'm saying that right. Unfortunately, it's only for Apple. Sorry, Android users. And I will be giving my patrons a demonstration on how to use the app soon. So here we go. How am I going to do this? First, I decided I wanted to tone the canvas. It's so white. I decided to use Dayla Rowney acrylic inks. You can use whatever you have watercolor acrylic, but I decided on this lovely purple color to create the mood of night. And it's a pretty dark photo anyway. I love using these mats to mark off standard sizes. And now I'm just toning the canvas using some brushes that I brought with me and the acrylic ink. Now, I'll be using this acrylic ink without any water. OK, this is just undiluted acrylic ink. I think I used maybe two dropperfuls. I love this purple, light color. It is such an awesome and gorgeous, moody purple. Look at that. When it goes on a little thinner, it's almost a magenta color. Isn't that pretty? Well, we'll have a pretty color when I'm finished. But what about pastels? Pastels won't stick to this. Also, pastels onto canvas are going to show that really canvassy texture. So it's really not a good way to paint with pastels. However, I decided I would play around with some of my products that I used to add grit and texture to other surfaces. The one that I used. I know you saw me hold up the fixative. I didn't use that when I used the clear liquid gesso that I talk about all the time. And also conveniently, you can find all of the products or most of the products that I talk about in my videos from my Amazon shop. I always have a clickable link to my shop in the about section of each video so you can find it in the description. And here you can find the things I talk about so easily. Here is the clear liquid gesso. Also, if you hover over the little caption, you can read my comments to each of these products so you can easily and conveniently find things. I don't always say you have to buy them from Amazon. You might want to check around to some other art supply stores for the best price. I also want to point out that in this particular section on the do it yourself pastel surfaces, there are other products that may work just as well on canvas, such as the pastel ground, this color fix primer. So you might want to play around and experiment yourself too. Now, I applied two coats. I wish I had had a bigger brush, but I applied it long and then wide after it dried, of course. So I ended up with two dried coats of clear gesso that worked quite well. Now, I want to mention real quickly, make sure you get clear gesso for one. It's clear you wouldn't be able to see through to the beautiful purple if you got regular gesso. And also clear gesso has a little bit of sand or grit in it, which is why these pastels are going to stick to this canvas. Now, as I mentioned, canvas does have a little bit of a textured surface. You know, like the weave of the canvas. I actually embrace a little bit of texture, but I found the clear gesso actually knocked that down a bit. It's not quite so canvassy with texture. Oh, and let me insert the reference image here. I know you can see it on my iPad to the left. I used one that I had, again, converted and played around with in the app that I mentioned, and I guess because it had been white so long, so much white that I just wanted to get fun with color. I like a lot about. Oh, there's my husband. Lady, sweet. Look, he's coming in to light a candle for me. But I really like the app because it seems to do color alterations logically and appropriately when it comes to color theory. So so it's really neat. Once again, patrons, I know I mentioned I'm going to try to give you guys a little tutorial on how I use it. The app doesn't really give you much any tutorials or any help really. It's not real user friendly, but but I really do like it. So so again, I wanted to punch it up with color and have some fun. Now, this was getting to the point where we had all been snowed in for a little while. And this was the last painting I did while I was there. But we were getting to the point where we really needed to wrap things up and get everything moved out of my mother-in-law's house. So I was a little rushed on this painting, not as fast as I've sped it up right here. But notice me using this paper towel. I have found that the paper towel blending method really does work well on a lot of surfaces and I, again, was having to work with things I had near me. And I was I was a bit rushed to finish this one up. But I was having fun, you know, it's OK. It's all right to if every painting doesn't come out to be what you would consider a masterpiece, everything is a learning process and always find some joy in the journey. Now, notice how this paper towel really is working great to kind of get me in a little value study and I'm using it. I'm grabbing it from areas and using it to create shadows. I really kind of like this moody, shadowy look here. So I'm just kind of creating a nice little value study. And then I'll start applying pastels on top. I'm going to add a bit of music in a minute for you guys to watch the rest of the process. I'm speeding this one up a little more than I usually do because it was this video is more about the technique for being able to work on canvas with soft pastels. But I also wanted to share with you a little bit of my thoughts as to what I thought about this, would I do it again? And yes, I would absolutely do this again. I was very pleasantly surprised. I think the times in the past that I tried canvas, I definitely didn't try the gesso, the clear gesso. And if I did, I may have only just done one coat of gesso because my previous results with using canvas they were not successful and I was frustrated. The pastels wouldn't layer. I couldn't get the color, you know, really vibrant and the texture of the canvas just showed through too much. So whatever it was I did here, I think it might have been the fact that I added the two coats of clear gesso. And like I said before, when I was showing my Amazon shop, I also think pastel ground made by Golden. I think it would work just the same, if not better. I really love that product, too, for making your own pastel surfaces. I think the clear gesso is the cheaper option, though, because you can get a big old bottle and it goes a long way. And so, you know, play around with that. But if you've got some extra canvas panels around and you're really getting more into pastels and you'd like to be able to use them, I think this would be an excellent way for you to do that. You can also tone the gesso if you wanted to give it a color. I find that toning the board with something first really gives it more vibrant color than if you add the color to the clear gesso. And I wanted to mention that I get a lot of comments on the channel and from my patrons on my Patreon page that sometimes you have a little bit of a challenge when applying pastels to the clear gesso, that it seems very textural at first. And actually, it does seem very textural at first. And I do recommend that if you apply your value study or underpainting first and then use some sort of blending tool, whether it be paper towel like I used or pipe foam insulation is one that I talk about a lot on my channel. And also a chamois cloth, if your surface isn't too textured, if it's too sandy, sometimes the chamois cloth gets stuck on it. So but my point is that if you use a clear gesso technique and you're finding that it just feels so gritty, go ahead and do an initial layer and sort of blend it in a little bit. And that will take away all of those spaces or that textural look to the paper. So maybe give that a try. And I always recommend when trying these things, don't commit to a big 11 by 14 painting or, you know, something that's a serious piece play. I always say just play more because when you're playing, you're learning and I probably play a little too much and don't do enough serious pieces, but and I always bring you guys along on the journey. So I probably sometimes need to slow down myself and create some pieces that, you know, I really feel are maybe a bit more professional, but but I love the fun part of the journey and I love sharing with you guys. Monet Cafe may be a bit unconventional at times, but I think we're all having fun. And if you're having fun and it's giving you peace and joy, then you've already won. You're already an artist. So so I always love to share that because I think a lot of people feel the same way that I do. I am going to zoom in. I'm going to add the music now, but I'm going to zoom in in a little while. I do end up. You'll see, after I get more applied on the foreground there, I do end up using a paper towel to blend even more in the foreground in hindsight. I did kind of like the little bit of texture I had before I blended. You'll see in a minute, but but I don't know, like I said, this is all kind of fun and experimenting anyway. And then you will also see me. I'll zoom in when I start adding more layers after I blend the foreground. You'll see me adding layers and I'm going to zoom in so that you can see how well this technique with the double coats of the Clear Gesso allows for layering. I was pleasantly surprised at how many layers I was able to achieve with this technique. So I hope you guys are learning from that. If you give it a try, I'd love for you to give some feedback or give feedback anyway or ask questions. Always try to answer your questions if you have comments in the videos and become a patron if you like. A lot of people become patrons for $5 a month just to support this channel. It has really been a blessing. I will say thank you. God bless you to all of my patrons, especially during this trial in our lives. We have my mother-in-law living with us now. And I do have her in a location where I can look at her with a camera that we have and I can watch her while I'm painting or working in case she needs assistance or she can haul her out to me. But I know a lot of you, I've messaged a lot of you who are in now or have been in these same situations. And that's what we do. You know, the Lord promises a blessing and we're to take care of our parents and elderly and orphans and widows. And that's what we're here for more than our own personal joy. It's to give and to help and to love. So all right, here's some music and don't go away, keep watching. I will be back at the end. So God bless you all. As you can see, the color was a little bit crazy in this piece, but it was definitely fun. And I always talk about art being like therapy anyway. And it truly does help you to get your mind off of things and to find some peace. I think I may have overworked it a bit in trying to rush up to get ready to leave, but I was still happy with the overall piece. And mostly I was happy with the fact that I had discovered a way to paint with pastels on canvas. Hope you guys try this. I hope you learned something. And as always, happy painting.