PAINTING
sunlight shadow W I T H P A S T E L S
essential techniques for brilliant effects
Maggie Magg ie Price Price
Contents 5
Introduction
58
So What, Exactly, Is a Soft Pastel?
Chapter 3
How Should I Arrange My Pastels?
Creating Realistic Shadows
Important Techniques: Underpainting
Uncover the many ways that shadows help describe forms
Important Techniques: Applying Turpenoid
while enhancing the appearance of light, making your
Important Techniques: Rubbing and Blending
paintings more believable.
Important Techniques: Lifting Off Color Important Techniques: Working From Reference Photos
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Chapter 1
Te Basic Principles of Light and Color 36
Chapter 4
Painting Lifelike Reflections Learn about the different elements that influence the appearance of water’s reflective surface, from the angle of light to the slant of the surrounding land mass.
Discover the most important principles of depicting natural
112 Conclusion
light and shadows in your paintings.
124 Index
Chapter 2
Observing the Color of Light Explore three of the most common environmental factors to take into consideration as you attempt to portray the color of light in your compositions: air quality, altitude and weather.
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Painting Sunlight Sunlight & Shadow with Pastels • Maggie Price
How should I arrange my pastels? Pastel artists are faced with a delightful but dizzying array of pastel sticks. Each time you prepare to make a mark on your surface, you must first select a pastel stick, considering its value, temperature, and hue. How you arrange your pastels can make this selection easier. Rather than keeping each set of pastels in the box it came in—which can result in a confusing jumble of sets—it’s a good idea to put all the pastels you want to use in one well-arranged box. Tis box can serve as your studio set as well as your your traveling traveling set if it’s small small enough. If you prefer a large box for the studio, you may want a second smaller box for painting outdoors. Tere are many boxes commercially available, but some artists
prefer to build their own or make their own modifications. modifications. Whichever you choose, the ideal box will have six divisions into which you can sort your pastels. Looking at those divisions from left to right in the photo below, you will see the value divisions, while looking from top to bottom, you’ll you’ll see the temperature divisions. As you begin begin to to arrang arrangee your your pastels, you’ll find that obvious warm colors, such as red and yellow, are easy to identify, and that obvious cool colors, such as blue, are easy to see. Te ambiguous colors are a little more difficult. For instance, looking at purple, you may have to ask, “Is it more blue than red? Or more red than blue?” Green is the most
difficult color to define in terms of temperature. Te easy solution is to put greens in the middle of the topto-bottom temperature division. You You will find that simply simply organizing your pastels is an exercise in perceiving value. Your eye can see far more than six value distinctions, so as you place each pastel, you will ask yourself, “Does it fit better in this value section, or in this one?” Over time, you may move a pastel from one place to another as your perception of value improves. And, as your perception of value is sharpened from this daily practice of organizing pastels, you’ll find your perceptions improving as you look at your sub ject, your photogra photograph ph or the painting painting on your easel.
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DEMONSRAION BY RICHARD LUNDGREN (EXCERP)
Depicting Shadows Cast on Reflective Surfaces Te interplay of shadows and reflections can create a wonderful subject. Areas Areas where where shadows shadows cross cross reflect reflections ions can be rich and dramatic dramatic,, leadin leadingg the viewer to spend time enjoying the painting. When you combine these elements with the attractive subject of children on a beach, you can create a powerful composition that transcends the somewhat trite subject and takes it to a new level.
MATERIALS SURFACE 18" × 24" (46cm × 61cm) white professional grade Wallis sanded pastel paper PASTELS Light Neutral Tan-Soft
Light Cobalt Blue-Soft
Dark Burnt Umber-Hard Umber-Hard Medium Cobalt Blue Burnt Umber-Soft
Blue Violet-Hard
Burnt Sienna-Semi Hard Light Blue Violet-Hard Cinnamon-Hard
Light Ochre-Hard
Indian Red-Hard
Flesh-Hard
Medium Orange-Hard
White-Soft
Light Orange-Hard
White-Hard
Pompeian Red-Hard
Light Pink-Hard
Van Dyke Brown-Hard
Sepia-Hard
Walnut Brown-Hard
Burnt Carmine-Hard
Light Pale Yellow-Hard Yellow-Hard
Medium Carmine-Hard
Light Earth Green-Hard PASTEL PENCILS White
Light Yellow
Light Yellow
Red Orange
Dark Burnt Umber
Dark Cobalt Blue
Dark Red Earth
Medium Blue Violet
Light Red-orange
Turquoise
Orange
OTHER Liquitex Matte Medium
Reference Photo
3-inch (8cm) house-painting brush
This is the best of about thirty pictures taken of the boys on the beach. Note that minor
1-inch (3cm) synthetic watercolor brush
adjustments need to be made to the boys’ hands during the sketching phase.
One sheet of white 50-lb. (105gsm) drawing
The color of the background underpainting will serve to tint the paper close to the color of wet sand. Since water covers most of the sand, the underpainting helps suggest the illusion of texture.
paper Mineral spirits Nos. 2, 2B, 4B, and 9B pencils 48-inch (122cm) steel ruler No. 2 flat color shaper SpectraFix Pastel Fixative
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Painting Sunlight Sunlight & Shadow with Pastels • Maggie Price
Complete the Sketch Draw a value sketch using correct proportions. Make compositional decisions, such as keeping the figures to the right and cropping the sand pail on the right by the t he edge of the painting. o o make the painting more interesting, the position of the hands is changed in this step.
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Underpaint the Background Lay in a light coat of soft neutral gray using the broad side of your stick. Ten, using mineral spirits and your 1-inch (3cm) synthetic brush, dissolve the pastel into the surface of the sanded paper, paper, yielding a color similar to that of wet sand. Because this is a complex composition, refrain from underpainting any further. Instead, move on to painting the figures.
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Finish the Figures and Fill in the Swim Trunks on the Left Finish the figures the same way you finished the faces. Use a color shaper to get the edge between the figure and the background correct. Drag the shaper over areas of slight buildup in the background to create a clean line. Be sure to clean the tip of the shaper between strokes so as not to transfer color where you don’t don’t want it.
Block in the Figures Using the same pastel colors used for the faces, block in the boys’ torsos, arms and legs. Start with the darkest areas and work toward toward the the lighter lighter areas. areas. Pay Pay particu particular lar attention attention to getting getting the transition between areas in light and shadow correct. Begin the outline of the boy on the left’s shovel, sand pail and swimming trunks using a medium orange pastel pencil and a hard, light orange pastel to preserve the edges of the shovel from the background, so that the shapes won’t won’t be lost as you continue to work.
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6
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Paint the Pail on the Right Outline the penciled line of the pail on the right with a sharpened hard pastel in light orange and medium orange, or use pastel pencils in similar shades. Do the same for the turquoise blue handle. Having established the edges of the pail, fill in the rest of the color paying attention to where the sun shines through the pail and highlights are created.
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Block in the Swim Trunks Trunks on the Right o capture the Hawaiian print of the swimming trunks on the boy to the right, begin by blocking in the darkest blue of the trunks as shown in this detail. Te trunks can be loosely defined since the patterns will be abstracted in the final rendering. Begin with a hard dark indigo blue pastel. Next, use a hard Prussian Blue and a hard medium-value Cobalt Blue. Ten add the red in the pattern, using a hard Burnt Carmine. Indicate the lighter reds with a hard medium-value Carmine pastel.
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Painting Sunlight Sunlight & Shadow with Pastels • Maggie Price
Luke and Jake Richard Lundgren Pastel on white professional grade Wallis sanded pastel paper 18" × 24" (46cm × 61cm)
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Add Finishing Finishing Touches Touches Complete the swim trunks of the boy on the right using hard white and hard light gray pastels to indicate the white outline of the print. Next, refine the pattern using the same colors you used for blocking in. Add a few highlights of lighter values of the same reds and blues used to complete the trunks. With the same neutral neutral gray gray used used for the shadow shadow cast by the the pail pail on the the left, left, paint the shadows cast by the boy and sand pail on the right. Again use a soft medium cobalt blue to glaze the shadow. Within this shadow area, add darker values of the reflected colors of the t he swim trunks and the boys’ skin tones. o o finish the shadow, shadow, add a little light neutral gray to indicate the light reflected under the pail. Next, complete the reflections cast by the boys with a lighter tone of the neutral gray used in the cast shadow. shadow. Indicate the reflections of the boys’ skin with darker darker values values of the the colors colors used to fill fill in in their their figures. figures. Finally, Finally, add some soft cobalt blue to the reflections to indicate wet areas of the sand.
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Features
• Maggie Price Price is a well-known well-known artist in a medium that is growing in popularity • 10 full step-by-step painting demonstrations • Shows you everything everyth ing you need to know about painting sunlight and shadow • Accomplished Accomplishe d contributors contributor s (Pastel Society of America America signature signature members members and instructo instructors rs with good representation in exhibitions and shows) provide inspiration and demonstrations to give a variety of styles and approaches • Gallery of of spectacular spectacular sunlight sunlight and shadow effects
About the Author Maggie Price is the co-founder, co-founder, former editor and current contributor for The Pastel Journal . She has written more than 100 articles about pastels and distinguished pastel artists. She serves on the editorial advisory boards of The Pastel Journal and and The Artist’s Magazine . She is also the author of Painting with Pastels: Easy Techniques to Master the Medium (North Light Books, 2007).
Price teaches workshops in pastel each year worldwide, and juries juries or judges judges art art exhibi exhibition tions. s. More More informati information on and images images of of her work can be found at www.MaggiePriceArt.com. www.MaggiePriceArt.com.
Cate Catego gory. ry. . . . . . . . Art Art Tec Techn hniq ique ues/ s/Pa Paststel el Price. e. . . . . . . . US $24. $24.99 99,, CAN CAN $28. $28.99 99 ISBN ISBN 10. . . . . . . . . . 1-440 -4403 3-03 -0391-6 1-6 Pric UPC . . . . . . . . . . . 0 35313 64948 6 Trim . . . . . . . . . . 8.25"w x10.875"h EAN . . . . . . . . . . .9 781440 303913 Page count. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 SRN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Z7062 Binding . . . . . . . . . . . . . Paperback ISBN ISBN 13. . . . . . . . 978978-11-44 4403 03-0 -039 3911-3 3
an imprint of F+W Media, inc.
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Painting Sunlight & Shadow with Pastels by by Maggie Price
Publ Publicat i catio ionn mont month. h. . . . . Word count. . . . . . . . # of color illustrations illustrations . . . # of b/w illustration illustrationss . . . Interior color . . . . . . .
. . . . .
. . Apri April 2011 2011 . . . . 30, 228 . . . . . 250 . . . . . . 20 . . . . . . . 4c
