 Welcome to Monet cafe. I'm artist Susan Jenkins. I'm glad you're here and today We're gonna talk about how to choose your color palette if you are brand new I hope you will consider subscribing to this channel so when I did the intro to this video this set that I have here the Unison 120 half-stick set was fairly new to me and I was describing how I had just gotten it and but I've Actually already used it for some other videos. I've uploaded so I just wanted to show you guys This is the same set that I'm using and I have used for the past. Oh, maybe three videos It's a great set if you're starting in pastels and you want a a little bit of everything It's a really good set to work from also. Thank you to everyone who has supported me on my patreon page It supports me and this channel to keep more videos coming. Thank you so much patrons and this reference image is actually from one of My patrons we have a page on Facebook That's private for my patrons where they upload their own reference images and share them together So it's a great resource for reference images too, and there's some great photos This is the resulting painting that I did and you will see in this video also stay tuned This is another painting I did from the same reference photo with a little bit of a different technique That's the next video. Alright, let's get started. But you know take a deep breath get you sip of coffee and here we go in This example of choosing my color palette. I'm using my iPad. I use a little both sometimes I'll use my iPad for a painting reference sometimes I'll use an actual printout once you've been painting for a while you can kind of improvise with color But early on sometimes an iPad or a photo on a computer screen It's more illuminated and sometimes you can see brighter colors versus a printout of a color Which is more opaque first. I will be focusing on the colors in the vase I've zoomed in so you can see it a little more clearly now I'm working on like the colors that are in that illuminated area of the vase and they're very teal or very turquoise But I want you to notice that I added that almost an ultramarine blue in with that We might have a tendency just to pick a turquoise color or different values Lightness and darkness of turquoise but without adding that blue the same thing happens with flowers a lot Sometimes you got to add a color that's a bit more rich and that blue is a little bit darker in value And it's going to add that richness to the Brighter areas of the vase now I'm zooming in even more and I will be choosing now the darkest darks within the vase And they're pretty dark as you can see if you look to the just to the left side of my middle finger on the iPad You can see a vertical band or area of darks And I've pulled a dark dark blue and a dark dark purple again I like to combine colors to give more of a richness and colorful punch so to speak and Just so you know, this is considered local color. I'm I'm painting pretty much what I see but I am Intensifying the color now you see I got another value of Or a shade of a purple, but it's leaning a little more towards red It's pretty dark not quite as dark as the others There's a nice little lavender you see that little strip of like the reflection in the middle of the vase It's not just white sometimes we have a tendency to go. Oh, that's white. Well, there is some white I'll add at the very end, but it it has a lot of lavender in it, too So I'm picking some colors that will be kind of in that little reflective Vertical strip that's there now. I also notice there are Some greens in that vase as well and it's very dark in areas So you you may have already noticed I usually try to go with the darks first and then go from there So this is like the darkest green. It's kind of a it is a cool dark green And I'm gradually going to lighten up. I see some of the lights if you look at the vase to the lower left there's like some Lighter greens kind of peeking through but I I want to be careful not to go too light too quickly And now I'm looking at some of the values where my finger is pointing down there. They're they're even darker and Not as bright as the first values and colors I picked out for the left side of the vase So I'm just you know kind of also to just pulling some colors I think I might want to play with and this does help to keep you focused on painting rather than going back to a Set or you know, wherever you have your pastels and choosing colors All the time. So I work both ways Sometimes I'll just work directly from the set and pull what I need as I paint. All right I pulled another little medium value Kind of a duller more neutral teal there too because I want to make sure I have some neutrals too And I'm kind of seeing that down to the lower left hand part of the vase there And while I already have a pretty dark purple I know there's going to be some other purples that I could use like that when I just pulled that could Really help in some of those reflective areas. All right now. Let's pick out the colors for the flowers Previously was real time But now I'm speeding it up just a bit because you kind of get the general idea once again I'm choosing darks first and even though the center of the flower When it's finally done may not be as dark as the colors I'm choosing I go ahead and choose the darks because that's kind of how we work with pastels same thing with these petals If we zoomed this out looked at the whole thing our brains might tell us these are white flowers And we would most likely choose colors that are way too light so lean towards a little bit darker and Then we can usually lighten them up as long as you don't overlay or an overwork So these are just the initial layers and while the focus here is obviously on color It's also on value and value is so important to make sure you get your values accurate and Also to not what our brain tells us our brain says that's a white flower So I'm analyzing these colors now those are for those darker petals that are way behind Like that broader pet petal you see right there I've zoomed in on and you see how those deeper petals behind that flower are really kind of a deeper teal and Another important point to analyze when you're choosing your colors is where's the lighting coming from and in this example? You can see how the petals in the back are kind of back lit more lit than the center like this flower I'm pointing at right here Obviously the source of light is not shining into that center of the flower because it's more in shadow You can see the values are darker and that's of all the flowers that little area that I was just showing is The darkest center point and petals of all of the other flowers right there So this is pretty much what I'm starting with I think I do add Kind of a brighter orange just again for a little punchy kind of at that punchy color in the center of that flower And I add a few more as I work But I thought this would give you guys a good idea of kind of my method of choosing color by the way Thanks for all your comments I know a lot of you guys are liking this overhead filming where you can see more of my choices And it does make it a little more clear for you guys. All right, let's start painting now I'm using a piece of Cinelli a la carte Pastel card. I really love this surface It's very coarse sanded and I think it lends towards a more painterly style If you're not familiar with what sanded pastel papers are I have plenty of videos that go over the differences between unsanded papers and Sanded pastel papers and just so you know like I said at the beginning I will be doing the same painting on water color paper with a neat technique to make pastels work quite well So stay tuned for the next video If you don't have any pastel paper or check out some of my other videos on how to make your own pastel papers All right, so I'm getting started now and what I'm doing is I'm just basically getting out of sketch I'm going to bypass this part real quickly so we don't have to go through that for the majority of the painting You'll be able to see Part or most of my reference image that I actually did print out I chose to work from the printout, but I chose to choose my pastels from the iPad So but my patrons you guys, you know, you'll get the reference image in the post on my patreon page If you want to use it also, it's on the private Facebook group for my patrons again Thank you a our mason for that lovely photo the rest of the painting process will be sped up slightly and The point or the focus of this video was how to choose your color palette Which I hope you I hope that's helped you guys and by the way that was per a Suggestion I always ask you guys to comment. Please comment on this video. Let me know what you like Let me know what you like to see but I actually got some great feedback from you guys on The fact that you kind of like a video focused on a topic It can get overwhelming when you're starting so the topic of course of this video was more on choosing your color palette When you start a painting so and also to I you see I'm working on the surface. It's the Sennelier La carte card is It comes in these pads like I showed that has various colors I love working on a warm toned color, especially when you have a scene like this or a reference photo this one had a lot of blues and Teals in it. So I thought the warmer color would make just a nice contrast a complementary contrast to that So but anyway, I am going to be Continuing with the voiceover part of this painting that will be included in the patreon version Of this video. So my patrons get a little bit extra content. Monet cafe always gets lots of content too But it's just my little extra special thing I can do for the people that Support the patreon page and if you're not a patron It doesn't matter because you're going to get plenty content here I have over 200 videos on this Monet cafe channel and I've seen artists or beginner artists just learn so much from The Monet cafe channel so but if you if you are an artist and you're trying to get a little extra or you just like the camaraderie I mean, I love our Our group and and we enjoy sharing together you guys in the patreon page You get homework your homework assignments and then there's drawings. There's Awards you can win gift cards you can win for art supplies and so it's a lot of fun But again, some people support it just Because Monet cafe is literally going to artists Or people who want to be artists and are trying to be artists all over the world and remote places where they may not even be able To get art lessons. So that's the coolest part to me about Monet cafe. All right, so if you're A Monet cafe subscriber and you're watching this video. Enjoy the rest of this video to music And uh for my patrons keep listening because i'm going to be talking a little bit more about the process. All right I sped it up just a little bit more here getting towards the end, but I wanted to make a comment that I Ended up lightening it up more than it is here. I realized I had Some of my choices a little too dark. I mean, I didn't want them to be White white flowers. I did like that back lighting and having the flowers a little bit more in the shadow Um, but I do end up lightening the final a bit more than you'll see here But anyway, I really had fun with this little painting. It was a nice way to just Relax and kind of zone out. Do you guys ever feel that way when you're when you get into a painting? Especially when you get past those initial phases and you've you've gotten things in for the most part Um pretty accurately. I just love putting on some nice music and Just being at peace and so I just want to encourage Everyone to try to paint that way as much as possible I know we're all very hard on ourselves as artists And uh that we if you're like me, I've got a real competitive gene somewhere in my gene pool And uh praise the lord. I've been able to overcome that just by realizing enjoying the friendships and the Connection that we get in sharing art together is more beautiful than the glory we would get from some sort of Praise for our own artwork and I guess that's why I guess I'm sharing my heart with you guys here I guess that's why I don't do a lot of contest and I don't have time for one But I love I love teaching more than competing And I'm really grateful for this channel and for all of you now here's the final painting Like I said, I lightened it up some but I did kind of like that little bit of a shadowy color on the flowers Do stay tuned because like I said, I'm going to do another video If pastel papers are too expensive for you. That's why I try to offer alternatives This technique on watercolor paper with clear gesso is way more affordable. So stay tuned for the next video I love all you guys. Happy painting