 Welcome to Monet Café and probably the most interesting video I've ever created on painting in the dark. I'm artist Susan Jenkins and I'm glad you're joining me for this experiment that is very, very helpful for you as an artist. I hope you'll try it. So what I did, I got up real early in the morning to beat the sunrise. I turned out the lights in my studio every light that I could turn out and I even had to turn out the light on my iPad. It took me about an hour to set up of course to get coffee and everything so it was about 5.30 by the time I got started turned my iPad off and my camera actually compensates for the dark so that was a good thing because you can kind of see a little bit with my camera but I couldn't see as much as you're seeing. Now this is the reference photo that I'll be using which is a photo of a picture I took the night before when the sun was going down in the field behind my house. Now here I am with the video footage actually turning out my ring light. I really love this light by the way thank you patrons you helped me buy that light and turning out my studio light and you see how dark it is. I did have a little bit of illumination from my Amazon Alexa and again this you're seeing more color than I was seeing. I was kind of testing my my camera out here and I couldn't see color like this at all. I only had a very dim light in my hallway these are this is more like what I saw and I want to turn the lights on now to give you some information as to my supplies. I'm using a piece of pastel matte sanded surface. I had to print out the reference photo because I couldn't have the illumination from the iPad that I like to work for my iPad often so I had to do it was a bad printout but these I did a set of Terry Ludwig it's the Maggie Price basic set some of the other Terry Ludwig sets I grabbed for Terry Ludwig darks I knew I needed some dark and I kept them separate in front of me so I would know where the darks were and so again this is me getting started I had a little pastel pencil to kind of sketch in what I could see for a little bit of a horizon line and the tree line and again it was even dimmer than you're seeing now and there's there's actually not a lot for you to see here I'll probably speed this up some but I wanted to talk through this a little bit here's what was so interesting and I encourage you to try this what happens when you turn the lights out and you work in the dark is a few things one is that you isolate big shapes when you're looking at your reference image you can't see a lot of detail all you can see is the big shapes and that's what we talk about all the time in basically getting your painting started is to begin with the big shapes and don't get too fussy so that it isolates that for you which is awesome the other thing that it does is it cancels out the color and this is kind of part two to the video I just uploaded on understanding value and I knew I was going to do this but I decided it would be too long of a video to do it all together so I this is part two and understanding value you can strengthen your that that principle or that concept by turning the lights out again you can't really see anything but value meaning lights and darks now in the reference photo that you can see a little bit pasted up there I don't I didn't want to put it in here for you to see it I wanted you to kind of look and work in the dark with me a little bit with this but in the reference photo you can see it's a a lot of dark and but you can see easily where that sky is and because I was a little closer to it you can see my face is being lit up by my phone just the phone and I use my phone I have awesome the new iPhone Pro Max is just so awesome with its camera capabilities another thing that my patrons have helped me to make this channel better if you don't know I have a patreon page it's www.patreon.com slash Susan Jenkins and a lot of people from Monet cafe who've been following for years and getting all the free art instruction have been so kind to want to support the channel to improve the channel and to keep I've been able to create more videos because of their support but for $5 a month you can support Monet cafe to keep these videos coming and they I get so many thank yous from people all over the world that don't have any resources for learning how to paint specifically in pastel painting so thank you always for your support that $5 really adds up and helps a lot also I give my patrons a little extra content and we have a lot of fun so it's a great group so anyway that's just something I'm thanking my patrons for but anyway so I am getting in I wanted to go ahead and get kind of a general path in I actually kind of in that field could see an idea of a path with the grasses and the way the grasses were growing and receding but I like to draw the viewer's eye into the painting so you can again you can see a little bit more than I could see with my my real vision versus what the camera is recording but you get the idea that it really is all about dark and light and medium values now here's what's interesting and I think what you would find interesting if you do like I did and you give yourself an assortment of pastels kind of like I did maybe pull out a set or or get just a good good variety of pastels you will inadvertently make some interesting color selections now this is a third thing why it's really good to practice this we get in habits with the choices our color choices and we sometimes ignore certain colors and add it in there not our favorite or we just don't see that color as easily and so when you paint like this and you have your selection non predetermined it forces you to grab colors you wouldn't normally grab now it I was quite surprised at the end and pleased I was very pleased I definitely used more of a particular color that I don't use a whole lot as as a final painting and I actually got some really interesting colors in the sky that weren't even blue okay so this just is such a great exercise so I will speed this up a little bit but I think it's going to be really fun when we turn the lights on with this thing and I think you will experience the same exhilaration and thankfulness that you did this experiment and I'm definitely going to do more of this alright I'm going to speed this up to the music and then we'll be ready for the grand reveal soon oh and I also wanted to mention that I gave myself a 15 minute time limit to do the portion of the painting that is in the dark and I think that's a great way to well you don't have light enough to get too fussy about the painting but it's a good way to get the the base of the painting done and then you can turn the lights on and be surprised and work on your paintings some more okay I'm going to speed this up and very soon we will see the exciting results alright my 15 minutes is up and it's time to turn on the lights to see where this painting is at so far I was very surprised that I put like a lime green in the sky and some pinks in the sky that I thought were lavenders I'm pointing out here I've had some pastel matte paper that's got some sort of a defect in it some little ridges that keep showing up I fix it by blending some pastels over it but it was a little frustrating I'm gonna see if I can talk back to the manufacturer and get another pad of paper now again this technique or exercise is best to do for the initial stages of your painting here you can see kind of those little ridges those lines in there I've got to get that fixed but here are my pastels that I used I had a little system because it was dark and I couldn't see what I was you I didn't use any of those other ones that is the Terry Ludwig shades of nature and umber shades and shadows I was going over to remind myself of the name of those yes umber shades and shadows and shades of nature I didn't use any of those I only use that Maggie Price basic set and I had the pastels turned up so I could see the ones or feel the ones that I had used already now I'm going to zoom in a bit you can see that defect in the paper that wasn't the purpose for zooming in I want you to see the colors that I've chosen here and I used like I said that kind of lime green in the sky I thought the pink was a lavender I was just kind of guessing and but that would have been the color I would have normally gone to more of a blue periwinkle or you know something more sky colored not that I always do blue in the sky but I used a lot more of that peachy rosy reds in there too and that I'm still pointing out that defect and oh I decided to use my my new technique I've been using is a little piece of chamois cloth the chamois cloth that you buy to dry your cars with I got a piece at the dollar store and I have really been enjoying using the chamois cloth to blend never at the end of a painting but especially in a case like this I use it to kind of blend out some of those ridges or marks on the paper and again I had only given myself 15 minutes to finish this initial part while in the dark so I recommend you don't paint too awfully long because you literally won't see what you're doing but it is a I think it's a good time limit that's the time limit I would use again in repeating this exercise and then one of my goals after that was I'd like to the freshness that it had and because sometimes I think we can all have a tendency to overwork a painting we have to purposely kind of walk away to make sure we don't do that I had made it a goal to keep this one very fresh with really fresh marks and also it was a really nice time for me because it was early in the morning I had my coffee I don't know about you guys I'm a morning person and I love the wee hours of the morning and it was just a really special time to paint I think I'd like to start a little morning series of paintings I think that's very interesting too because there's another artist named Susan Jenkins I think oh forgive me if I'm wrong she's either in her late 80s or 90s she has been producing beautiful artwork for a long time she is an oil painter primarily I don't know if she has many pastels but I ran across her somehow years ago and I love her work but she has a series or you know a grouping of paintings called her morning paintings I was like wow it must just be you know my little kindred spirit or something because I love the morning too and I really want to try to set some time also too because there's so much going on in life to keep these videos coming it would help me if I get up early in the morning to do these because you know how life gets in the way so many things and I have so many other things I do besides my art career so but this is my favorite right you guys know what I'm talking about alright so I am going to I'm gonna try to zoom in on this a little bit so you can see more and I'll provide for my patrons I will provide the reference image if you wanted to use my that's another little special thing my patrons get I give them often my reference material but I'll provide an attachment for the reference if you'd like to try to recreate it but you can recreate it with your own reference image or recreate this exercise and I really think you're gonna learn a lot so if you have struggled with value or seeing value this is going to be very helpful for you and very beneficial okay now I'm adding that purple doesn't that just look nice I love that purple alright so watch the rest of this I am let me I'm just gonna speed it up two times it's not much at all and add some music you guys continue to watch and pop back in before it's over enjoy I'm wrapping it up at this point again I decided to keep it very fresh and perhaps even a bit unfinished looking so I decided just to go ahead and sign it I was very pleased with the results I like how it was not overworked and I decided to call it dramatic ending also I've got more of a system now where I'm sharing my original paintings with anyone who signs up for my email list on my website www.susanjinkansfinark.com you can sign up and get my information about my paintings etc you can also find the link to purchase the Monet cafe artist series bracelets they're awesome there are three styles to choose from and this is another way you can help support the channel if you don't want to do the monthly $5 subscription so turn out the lights and turn on your knowledge of value and make your paintings even stronger check out all these links that I have on the screen and as always happy painting