 Welcome to Monet Café. I'm artist Susan Jenkins and very happy to bring you a lesson. I think should help a lot of artists I'm calling this how to rescue a dud. Yes, we all have them So this should be very helpful and here's a little intro from me Hello artists and welcome to Monet Café. Oh, I just love the beginning of a new month Announcing a new theme and especially when it's springtime related. I love flowers I love painting fields of flowers the theme this month and Monet Café is new life now That can be a broad theme. So you interpret that how you like, but I'm going to be bringing you I've been promising watercolor tutorials. They are on the way With some beautiful flowers, but I'm gonna show you in this video a pastel painting demonstration of how you can rescue a Dud and yes, I was just talking to one of my patrons I have duds all artists have duds and it's really nice when you know, you can really repurpose Many surfaces and still create a painting. So don't give up Don't get frustrated if you have duds either. We all do trust me We don't show our duds even the best pastel artists don't show their duds typically So anyway, let's paint these beautiful bright and colorful spring flowers in soft pastel I hope you learn a lot and if you haven't subscribed, please do so we have so much fun here Alright, let's get started and I'm able to keep these free lessons coming because of the support from my patrons on my patreon page If you would like to consider becoming a patron It's only five dollars a month and you get extra goodies and extra content now This particular dud that I'll be rescuing came to be as I was creating watercolor tutorials for this month One of them just did not come out right. It was flat. What did I say artists? Don't show their duds. Well, there's my dud So what I decided to do is to use some acrylic paint a foam brush You could use a paintbrush and some clear gesso now. This is on watercolor paper Obviously, I've covered up all of the other watercolor paintings and I decided, you know I can't paint watercolor back over this So I'm going to do a trick that I do often clear gesso works great to create a pastel surface And I needed to kind of get rid of this background So I had I actually have a whole bunch of acrylic paint that I never use and that's the neat thing about art What do they say necessity is the mother of invention and so I decided let's try some acrylic paint This was heavy bodied acrylic paint probably why I never used it So I shot it with a blow dryer to get it nice and dry and I don't normally choose a yellow underpainting But you know me I love to experiment and I thought this is spring I would like it to be really vibrant and bright. So now here's where the magic happens Yes, you can use a product. I use this all the time called clear gesso not regular gesso It's clear. It's gonna dry clear But what it's also going to do is it has little bits of sand in it so it's like making your own DIY homemade pastel surface and It's really an inexpensive way to create your own pastel surfaces on Watercolor paper again, I have all of my watercolors covered up here And I knew I couldn't put watercolor on top of this So I thought let's do I go back to my favorite medium soft pastel So I'm gonna put two coats of this clear gesso on. I don't always do two coats but in this case I decided to just to get some extra grit and Voila, I have my own homemade Pastel surface and I have restored a failed dud painting. So alright now Let's get to the tutorial in soft pastel and by the way I do have a product review video on Liquitex clear gesso on my Amazon shop I will include a link to that review video in the description of this video and you can click to purchase the product there if you like The reference image is from unsplash.com Which has quickly become one of my favorite little ways to get copyright free reference images It's a great website. You get some really great professional photographers who upload their work It's copyright free so you can use it to paint from without any challenges and here's my profile on there I have my section called collections You're welcome to find me on there and check out some of my collections not all of them are public though So but I do have one called flowers that I got this one from along with all of the Upcoming watercolor tutorials, so they're all in this one album and I find it's really great sometimes just to gather a lot of Photos that you like put them in little files called collections because what happens is sometimes you get in a creative mood to paint and You waste a lot of your creative energy just looking for something to paint So it's really nice if you already have some collections ready to paint from now This particular photo is from Joanna swan and I want to thank you Joanna I actually already sent her a message thanking her for her lovely photo and I like she says she likes telling stories One photo at a time. She has some lovely work The soft pastels that I used primarily for this painting is the Paris collection And this is such a lovely collection by Cinelli a Cinelli a pastels are so buttery and vibrant I love it. This is my breakdown of kind of the layout of how they have them in the case And I thought it was really well designed according to color and value and There is cat hair on my little set there because my cat Somehow found a way into my studio and took a nap on top of my pastels and she's a white cat So she was quite colorful afterwards. I also like how Cinelli a has on the side of their box a reference for every color And every number I always recommend make your own color guide the one I did before that you saw literally I took a photo of the box Converted it to black and white and made a mark of each color on top of the corresponding pastel That's a neat way to do it So I will have a clickable link to this set in the description of this video and by the way It's one of the best values for quality pastels. It's a really good buy now rather than using pencil to sketch I often like to use vine charcoal or willow charcoal. They're just big sticks of charcoal This one was rather thick. I had used up all of my other thinner ones But I find that it helps to keep a real gestural feel I hold it like way down On the stick rather than cinching it up like you would write with a pencil and I just get in some of the general little flower shapes and keep it very Lyrical and gestural because these flowers what I loved about this photo is it felt like they were Trying to peek around the corner of the road I always seem to personify flowers and trees now this product gloves in a bottle is Something that I heard recommended by artist Alan Picard. He's an amazing pastel artist and I don't use it often I forget to use it basically, but when you put it on your hands kind of like a lotion It kind of keeps the soft pastel From being so dusty on it. That's the only way I can put it I don't have to wash my hands quite as much so that also can be found in my Amazon shop I'll try to put a link to that in the description as well. Now. I am Going ahead and getting in my darks. I noticed in this particular reference photo The background was very shadowy behind that field of flowers and behind the road And I'm gonna use often I use a chamois cloth that little square to the left to blend with on this particular Surface you can't use it on every surface, but what I'm using here. You saw me hold up These are packing peanuts that you get in Packages to protect the contents of the package and I found they worked really great on this homemade surface with the clear Gesso I have a whole bag full of them. I definitely gonna use them again now I am getting a kind of a foresty green. It's kind of a darker Darker value green but not nearly as dark as the background and I want you to take note This is all real time by the way. The rest of this is gonna be real time I think with the exception of one little part where I'm adding stems to the flowers But I want you to take note that the painting is going to look a little bit dark for a while. I'm getting in My darker values, and I'm getting in the ground color And I will gradually add lights kind of like I just did to that little background tree I gradually add my lighter values on top and That's the beauty of soft pastel and it's similar to acrylic and oil You can get your darker values down first and layer the lights on top for a nice contrast Oh, this was a nice neutral green that was in that set when things are in the distance color gets more neutral typically So and when I can't wait I've got a video coming up soon on color that I can't wait to share But I wanted to make sure I had enough darks down for good contrast In that background and now I'm just scumbling in the road with a it's kind of a dull Color, it's a little dark. I'm gonna lighten up the road But notice to how so much of that surface is showing through so what do I do? Voila, I get my little handy-dandy packing peanut and lookie there It covered up all of that little space between where it just looked like it wasn't getting good coverage I think that frustrates a lot of beginner artists Especially it depends on the surface as you're working on but when you're first starting out you feel like everything should already be filled in and Resist the urge to oversaturate your painting to blend it but it is nice at the beginning stages to Use a little blending tool like this because you really can get down a good blanket of your color and value and Then start to add your additional layers and you could instantly see when I blended that road How much of an effect it had on making it look like a smooth application? so use blending sparingly though and I suggest usually only in the beginning stages don't overblend you're gonna lose that beautiful color of pastel and And you kind of like crush its little particles that is what gives it the Brilliant color that it has which I think is really more beautiful in color than any other medium And now I'm scumbling in a little bit of the dark around my little flowers that I had sketched in so gesturally And I'm going to use the little blending tool again in a minute. This is a really nice teal kind of neutral cool blue-green and I know that the color is going to cool off a little bit in the back and I'm thinking about what's underneath all of those bright green Leaves other than the flowers There's a lot of leaves and all kinds of this and that kind of grasses and leaves sticking up And I need enough dark for contrast to lay those lighter grasses down on so I'm kind of Strategizing about what colors I want to use. I know I want in some places for things to cool off There's gonna be some shadows down underneath the sides of the road back there The road kind of there was a shadow from that one tree and then the road kind of curved around behind the shadow now Here I am blending again and notice I'm just kind of loosely blending between some of the flower shapes But I don't have to be so careful and I only block off flowers that are quite large I'm not worried about blocking out or sketching in flowers that are small They can just be layered on top now. This was a nice little magenta color that was in the set I think so far every pastel I've used has been in this particular Paris collection set now I'm just scumbling in some of this pretty I wanted to have a road that was kind of like Roads in Georgia if you're from the United States, Georgia has kind of red clay and it's just real earthy and neat And this still looks fairly dark But I know in my mind that all of this is just the initial layers So sometimes I think well, let me stop for a minute. I did want to add in a little bit of the The things on the ground that were little rocks and sticks and things and give it a little bit of texture in just a few places You don't want to overdo this and it's really going to diminish as it goes back into the background But I think as beginner artists We have a tendency to Paint almost like paint by number We look at each particular color we try to find that color and fill it in the teeny little space and If you can realize as a pastel artist the real depth of your art comes in Layering layering typically the darker value and then the lighter values on top of that It also lends more towards the impressionism rather than like I said paint by numbers the best way I can describe it Just filling in all of the little spaces. We're layering those colors and values on top of each other and It really makes it start to look like like life does and by the way I think I forgot to mention the size of this it is five inches by four inches and All of the paintings that are on this big sheet of watercolor paper are all Five inches by four inches or sometimes I turn them the other way and they're four inches by five inches So I have almost all of them were vertical. This one was horizontal and I had one with sunflowers. That's a watercolor one. That's That was horizontal landscape. It's called format and the neat thing is when I'm done with all of these You're gonna get to see the watercolor lessons on all of the other five paintings and At the end it's so neat to pull this tape off. You can see I have masking tape around this one and You just get the nicest crisp clean edge. It's really neat now I'm using that same pretty blue I talked about and I'm I'm cooling off some of the distant grasses They were a little warm and colors Typically cool off a bit in the distance now. You obviously want to consider your subject matter. I mean Even red flowers do cool off though in the distance You go from a warmer red in the foreground to a cool red in the distance But don't get so carried away with that to think you've got to change your red flowers to blue flowers. That's not that cool So hopefully you understand what I'm saying now often with things that are purple. These had some beautiful purple lavendery type of flowers, I don't know what they were but they were just kind of Whimsical and all over the place back there and often I will throw in a real pretty like blue I find that those types of purple flowers have blue as a base and then you finally get to your purple this actual This purple right here was a purple that was in the The set of Sennelier and I really love it. It's a really neat neat purple It's kind of a it's in between purple and blue and that's one of my favorite colors actually But I do get some more of the more lavender colors that I add later once again still working on Dark to light. I'm gradually starting to lighten things up here I even add a little bit of purple that shadow across the road there and I reinforce that a little bit later So as you can see and this is all real time. I'm just scumbling things in And now I'm using that packing peanut again to soften up some of the areas in the distance now What happens to things in the distance? Well, typically they're not quite as in focus, right? You can tell that with your own eyes if you're looking out in nature and by the way I highly encourage that become a student of nature. I remember when I first started painting It was like I started looking at the world with new eyes. I started like oh my gosh some of the things I've been learning is it's really true Things do cool off in the distance like distant mountains and things really do get a lot blurrier in the distance now Those two colors there are kind of magenta colors I didn't have a color like this in the Paris collection set that was this dark It had some pinks in the set, but I knew for some of these pink flowers. They had a really a Darker base to them. There were shadows in between the all the pink petals So this is the typical layering strategy. Let me go ahead and block in The darker value of what I think is the base color the darkest color in those pink flowers And then I'll gradually start layering the petals as the light is hitting them directionally Kind of as they're coming out and how the light is catching the petals rotating around the flower and so it looks a little I don't know Chunky and weird at first. I heard a term many years ago where an artist a really great artist Said that I can't remember who it was. I've looked at so many good artists, but that said that Your painting goes through like an adolescent phase. You know how we're all kind of I don't know a little uncoordinated and whatever as teenagers. I know I was I went through a real height growth spurt I'm kind of tall and I was just as clumsy as I could be But anyway, your painting kind of goes through that too and when you're first starting sometimes you get frustrated with that I did that so much that I would say to my husband. I would be like, oh, this is terrible I am not getting this and he would say you say that every time Susan and then and it starts to come together and So give it some time and just embrace the fact that yeah, it's gonna look a little a little I don't know unfinished at first and I noticed this with There are some artists that I don't know it looks good kind of the whole time Have you ever seen those artists, but I see a lot of really professional artists where it takes a while this Initial blocking in stage and building up stage Does take a little bit of time and then then the fun begins. It's like icing on the cake You know baking the cake takes it's a lot of work at first, you know Well first you got to go buy you got a planet. You got to get a recipe. You got to buy all the ingredients You got to go to the store. You got to put it in your buggy. You got to go home I would say man. There's so much I love cooking, but there's a lot to it You got to take it out. You got to do everything and finally What's the fun part if you're making a cake that you're decorating it's the decorating part So you're laying you're baking a cake You're you're getting all the ingredients together right now and it eventually will come together But let me talk a little bit more about the point of this video one of the points of this video you know my videos I cover a whole lot of topics and But when it comes to creating a dud It happens, you know, I like I said with that watercolor painting some things just didn't work out it was very flat and I decided rather than beating myself up about it You have a couple of options when you create a dud now if you're working on a surface that you don't really have any options to Restore it repurpose it like I've done here One of your options is to throw it away toss it. What do they call that file 13? It's the trash can Toss it and move on and know that you learned something Even with your painting that wasn't one that you would want to share with the whole world, you know But you learned something you learned something with every single painting I have a lot of artwork that a lot of artwork that I've thrown away And what's going to happen too is as you grow as an artist You're going to look back at some of your work that you did a couple years before And you're going to see how you grew You're going to see a painting that you know two years ago You thought wow that was really good and it was good for the time that you did it And then a few years later you'd be like, oh my gosh, I have really come a long way since then So don't get frustrated. And I think that's why I like the slogan That I the slogan on Monet cafe was Art with friends is better, which it is that's the whole thing here We're doing this together guys. We're learning together even though we can't physically hug each other which I wish I could We are together Because of the wonderful thing of the internet, you know But I changed the slogan to live love paint because I think often We get so darn picky about our own work and I've seen artists Really get depressed because they weren't happy with the work that they were creating And we forget that a lot of the joy is just in the creative process I do voiceovers a lot for multiple reasons. One reason is because oh, I need to talk about some of this One reason is because I live on a busy road and sometimes I have to avoid the car sound Um, but another reason is so that I can embrace the creative process. I love to put on some Classical music have my candle burning have a cup of tea. So embrace the moment. Enjoy that part too All right, so now you can see I am adding some of the petals Now can you see how that base of dark? Is starting to show In the little spaces in the little negative spaces of the petals that I'm creating and when it comes to flowers I typically like to get just the basic shape of the flower with my darker underpainting and then I start to look again working dark to light then I start to look at the next Layer or color that I would put down And I just sort of gesturally put them in I squint my eyes I look at kind of where they're at on the flower and then I make a mark Just in the general direction they're going in and gradually start adding lighter Values until I get to the lightest. These are not the lightest pinks. You're going to see those at the end Now you saw me before I added a little bit of that Kind of orangey color and then I go back in and add a little bit of that Lighter yellowy color on top of that and that's the same concept of layering I layered the dark and then I layered the light and I added that dark to this flower It had a large center and now I'm doing that part where I'm I'm looking you can see me pausing there. I'm looking at where these petals are I saw this one was kind of the petals were reaching upwards So there was a more of a shadow on the viewer side But there were also some areas on this flower where they looked like some of the petals were kind of Old so I I didn't want to add too much bright to those petals So kind of pay attention to your reference image. It'll be a great guide for you You don't have to do everything exactly like your reference image I like to say find something that you just it makes you happy. You're like, oh, that's just really I love this This is beautiful and then Leave in the things that you loved and take out the things that are just too busy Or just don't really need to be there But use it as a guide how the flowers are turning And how some of the colors may have subtle differences because of the light and the shadow Now I did have um, this is how you know, I said the flowers seem like they were all kind of peeking around to see What's around the corner of that road? I just love the mystery of roads and I wanted to um, just kind of Personify these flowers as doing the same thing as people do Truly always think of uh creation as As us, you know, I love how flowers turn to the sun and trees reach up to the sun and and it's like life is celebrating our creator And uh, I just I love it. I love that part about being an artist So you can see how I've been just layering gradually now. I loved this This is a color I don't often use. Well, no, actually I use this one a little more than what I'm thinking of There's a type of green that's almost like an artificial green But this one I like this one would be one I would use more in water or in a sky Um, but it really worked well for some of the cooler Little grassy things that were going on Underneath the flowers now now you can see the dark green underneath the flowers That's that's like where the darkest part of those grasses and leaves are and The lighter part is what I'm gradually starting to layer now I saw there was a lot of cool elements going on underneath there Because some of the tall grasses were blocking the sun from some of these that were underneath And I'm going to gradually work towards where I'm adding the bright greens, which is where they're going to be They're going to be on top where the sun is hitting them. So that is coming. Um, and I'm and notice too I'm working the whole I I don't get so caught up in one little area now. I used to and it's very frustrating For one you overwork that area like if I just stayed focused on those two flowers in the foreground And I just worked and worked and fiddled and fussed It's going to lose continuity and you're going to get frustrated. Now. Those are three purples That are terry Ludwig pastels. I don't know if I mentioned that before about the two burgundies. I showed up If they're rectangular like this, these look square because I broke them in a half. They're Wonderful terry Ludwig pastels. I love their pastels. I love their company It's an american made pastel the owners are amazing people and not that I've met them in person But I've communicated with um Jeff or joff. I don't know how you say his name, but he is he's just such a neat guy So anyway, these have some great darks So the purples I use that are really dark and the magintas that I use that were really dark are the terry Ludwigs And I'm just kind of again using my reference image as a guide Sometimes I'll say oh, no, I'd like that flower over there better or I want this reaching out Looking around the road giving my concept, you know more meaning um Now I did take this I liked this purple to make a little bit more of the base Of those lavender flowers there a little more dark down when they're getting closer to the ground And then I'm gradually going to add some of the lighter colors on top Um, so I'm trying to do more real time. I do sometimes take my uh footage after the fact and take out any Span of time. That's a break. I'm trying to make this convenient for you Sometimes I'll walk away from my camera grab my coffee and so I don't want you guys to have to you know watch through all of that So I do Take the time to really cut this video up. So you're getting just the painting portion Um, I think that that helps Um, so you don't get bored either and also so that the video is not so long to upload Now those are two pastels that are not in the paris collection I'm trying to make note to you guys when there's something else These are just where I was in my general workshop palette of some pinks that I had This one was a little bit not quite as bright as the pinks that I used with those two foreground flowers Now this is a really really neat pink. I think this one is a schminka pastel It was just a little bit brighter than some of the pinks Um, you can see kind of when I put it down on top of those very subtle difference now I'm going to do that trick again on top of the dark that I put in the center I put the orange and then I put the gold and believe it or not You don't cover it all the way up You leave a little bit of the the orange showing through and you get that feeling of depth now I even add here come here comes the icing I even add some of these brights that look super bright right now because I haven't added some of the The lighter greens that are going to really start making this come to life I wanted this I want to shape this flower a little bit more More gestural and a little bigger. So I laid down a little more of that magenta and now I'm layering I'm looking at some of the little The way the light is catching these petals and and I am paying attention to the flower. I let the flower be my guide And and the value I'm looking at the values as well I want to add a little bit more dark value down in some of these flowers just to give them a little more depth And this is where some of the the icing on the cake is going to start happening I'm going to start adding more lights. I do refine some of these flowers But I got to thank you guys those of you who have commented I've mentioned a couple of times that I do get I'd say I get 98 Great positive feedback and comments and by the way, please comment. I love your comments Other people love your comments read your comments and they learn from the questions you ask and the answers that I give Also, it helps this video to Get seen by more people youtube will share this video more as a suggested video If it has a lot of comments and a lot of likes kind of quickly But I've mentioned that I do you know two percent of the time or so You know get some negative feedback, but you know what that's people you never know some people They may have just had a bad day and they're just uh, I I'm a good person to vent They can vent their frustration to or whatever and I know that happens And I try to respond to everything with kindness and wow, thank you that I never thought of it that way But sometimes I'll get comments like boy, you sure do talk a lot or you sure are chatty and um I just like to say well, that's what I'm trying to do here is give you guys Information about how to paint and I also can't help that I am just a lover of life And sometimes my comments might have to do with the lord I am a firm believer in the lord jesus christ. That's probably what I get most negative comments about But hey, I gotta say who I am and why I am the way I am and that's why I just love Painting and our creation so much. So I want to thank you guys. Many of you are like you just talk away That's how we're learning. So god bless you. Thank you so much for that um, I I love the fact that I'm able to give you guys free lessons and You know, most of you are very very tolerant of my craziness now. I didn't see many red flowers in this Reference image, but I wanted to create a little bit of variety. Does anybody know what these flowers are? Are they zinnias? I love zinnias. Well, some of them look kind of like a little type of a daisy But I thought this will give a little bit of interest So on top of the magenta, I layered a little bit of this pretty red And you see how I'm just giving little almost geometric shapes for the petals And then the same concept of the center now also too often flowers are not all pasted on the top of the grasses like, you know, uh, that will look very artificial because grasses do Um and leaves do cover flowers So I'm gonna have a few of them kind of buried when I add my leaves and grasses on top Um, but really a lot of these were you look in the reference image a lot of them were really reaching up There's a few of those purple ones buried down beneath So keep that in mind when you're adding some of your final grasses and layers Is that burying some of them will make it more believable And now I'm just looking for some of those flowers. I've already gotten in a little bit of the darker elements I'm adding little highlights on top of things And uh, this pastel also is not part of the senelier said it was just kind of a medium Pink that seemed nice for some of the uh, the petals on the flowers and notice I have them turning in different directions That's another thing too, even though a lot of these flowers are reaching up Towards the sun and some of them like I said kind of reaching down the road But keep in mind that, uh, you don't always have to have your flowers all facing the same direction And now you can see these flowers were missing something right that we're missing their stems So I used a I did speed that part up. I used a prismacolor new pastel It's a harder pastel you can get a little bit more of an edge to it And this is a purple I often love for shadows Adding some purples to the shadowy sides of the road. I feel like it just gives color interest Um, and now just to keep this video a little small I'm showing some of the icing on the cake part now. I'm adding my greens This is part of the senelier set the paris collection in little, um, Gestural marks of leaves and grasses once again using the reference image as my guide, but not as a strict Photo that I have to follow everything exactly and this is what's going to bring this to life And there's another one of the prismacolor new pastels. I'm using it for some of the grasses And now I've put it back to real time. I added a few more little bits of debris and things on the road that would create shadow I softened up see how neutral this pastel is. It is part of this Uh, senelier set the paris collection I wanted to soften that dark background a bit because it's dark But softening a little bit is going to give it more of the feeling that it's further away So I'm just kind of scumbling it in and um, not making that that dark look quite so black or so harsh And here's that pretty purple again from the set This is where I said I went in and added just some little fun marks of some of those lavender grasses or flowers in the background Um, and also too there's so far away. You want to keep it really subtle I even added it in areas that I didn't see just to kind of harmonize some of the color And now I'm lightening the road again. This is a terry Ludwig pastel once again, and I'm squinting my eyes I highly recommend that while painting Um, what you can do is it allows you to see values better I'm looking for the lighter areas in the road the darker areas are a little more towards the edges But there's a couple of areas that are just a little bit lighter than other areas And so I'm just like I use the word scumbling a lot because you want just Um, general painterly marks You don't have to have anything that is an exact rock or an exact leaf on the ground It's just shapes and values and that's not your focal point. Anyway, so you don't want to overdo the detail Now here's this look at this green. This is the beautiful green from the Paris collection set It is such a nice lime green and I'm reserving this if you look at the reference image There's a few of those that are kind of like that green and they're just on the tops They're not even that much in the foreground, but a few of them, you know Just catching a little bit of the light This color is not going to go down too deep into the grasses at all because the sunlight's not hitting it there Um, and I used this green just to soften up that little looks kind of like a little evergreen tree in the background And here is the final painting of how I rescued a dud I was going to call this video turning a dud into a stud But I decided against that. Oh, and by the way, this painting is available as long as it is available in my etsy shop I just added a lot of new artwork also to if you're a patron of mine You're going to get a few more goodies from this video. So stay tuned and god bless you all happy spring happy april Oh, yeah, and happy painting