Pastel Demo – Landscape with Wildflowers About Karen Margulis I was born in Connecticut, grew up in South Florida and spent summers in the North Carolina Mountains. I currently live in Marietta Georgia, just outside of Atlanta. I graduated from the University of Florida with a BA in Education. I operated a family day care for 21 years so that I could stay home with my own 2 children. We traveled every summer with the kids and tried to visit every National Park. Most of my paintings are inspired by the photos I took on these adventures. I am now painting and teaching pastel classes and workshops full time. I am represented by several galleries in the Southeast as well as several online galleries. I am a Member of Excellence in the Southeastern Pastel Society and a Signature Member of the Pastel Society of America. Follow this link to v isit Karen’s Website Pastel Demo….Colorado Landscape with Wildflowers
‘Into Yankee Boy Basin’ 8×10 pastel ©Karen Margulis
painting available for $95 at Daily Paintworks After three weeks of traveling I have enjoyed getting back to the easel today. I decided to do a pastel painting of Colorado’s Yankee Boy Basin. I visited this beautiful spot at the height of wildflower
season and was in heaven! I took photos of my process and would like li ke to share them as a demo.
I am working on Uart paper size 8×10. I chose Uart because I wanted to do an alcohol wash and this paper handles a wash beautifully. I did a rough sketch of my main shapes with a nupastel. I don’t like
a fussy drawing because then I am tempted to stay in the lines and be less l ess painterly.
I covered the paper with broad strokes of hard pastels. I used some Nupastels for this step. I used a combination of local colors and complements for the underpainting. I started with the dark shapes first. I chose the pinks and oranges because I knew I would be using a lot of green in the painting. This will make the green masses more interesting.
I used rubbing alcohol and a cheap bristle brush to paint over the pastel, liquifying it. I try to be careful to not let it be too sloppy and drippy or else all of the colors will run together to make mud. it dries in about 20 minutes or less.
Now I am using my softer pastels and I begin by blocking in all of the dark shapes. I try to connect the darks where I can so I won’t have a painting that is too spotty. Next I block in the sky with several
blue pastels.
I finish the sky and add some lights to the clouds. I also add some pastel to the mountain. I liked the colors of the mountain in the underpainting so I use a very light touch and use colors close to the ones in the underpainting.
At this point I got into my zone and forgot to take pictures! What I did was build up the greens in the trees and the grasses. I used a lighter cooler green in the distant grasses and warmer greens in the foreground. There was a lot of bushes and stuff in my reference photo so I tried to simplify it into some green shapes. I also worked on the path by adding some dark peach and blue shadows and the light peach of the dirt.
I am almost done here. I added hints of the wildflowers with a focus on the red Indian Paintbrush. These are just marks and not detailed flowers. I decided that I needed to carry the eye down the path and into the distance better. So I added some bright green accents in the bushes and carried the red flowers into the distance but I used a cooler red and I made them smaller. See the top photo for the finish! Thanks for following along and I hope my thoughts as I painted are helpful! I have an idea for this same scene so plan to come back later this week to see what I am up to!
Artist Biography – Phil Laughlin, PSA EVOLUTION OF A LANDSCAPE PAINTER Phil Laughlin was born in the Finger Lakes region of New York. Like most kids, he enjoyed drawing, but you wouldn’t have guessed from his childhood that art would become his passion. At home, the
idea of a career in the arts was never discussed. School offered one art course in 12 years of public education. The prevailing attitude was “Okay… We’ve checked the art box on the curriculum form, let’s move on to the real business of life.”
From Engineer to Artist
His academic strengths were math and science so it seemed like engineering would be a good course of study at college. The social upheaval of the late 1960′s collided with these well laid plans. In the second year of study at SUNY Stony Brook he began to question his career path in typical counterculture style. Doing something in the creative arts seemed more meaningful than building rockets, so he switched majors to studio arts. When he graduated from Worcester Museum Art School, abstract impression was winding down. Several other art movements emerged in rapid succession. The ones dealing with formal abstract geometric qualities were most interesting. He moved to New York City and continued to paint. The need for employment pushed him to study applied arts and work as a graphic designer. Creatively, commercial design work wasn’t very fulfilling, but the opportunities presented by the city
itself and the exposure Manhattan offered to new ideas and new standards of artistic professionalism were their own reward. World class galleries and museums were everywhere. He passionately consumed it all. On an eventful shopping trip to Pearl Paint’s, a popular Manhattan art store, he saw a large set of Senelier pastels showing hundreds of colors spread out on display. That was it! He bought the set and has been a devoted pastel artist ever since Life as a Vermont Artist In 1986, Phil moved his family to the beautiful mountain state of Vermont. Shortly afterwards desktop computers arrived. Following a period of experimentation, he found himself working with illustration software, rendering product and technical subjects. Painting time was reduced but not neglected while he worked and raised a family. Eventually, the kids moved out, and he made a gentle transition back to working more at the easel. Along the way he discovered that Vermont has a rich tradition of landscape painting, and inspired many prominent artists past and present. Casting aside the last bit of guilt over leaving modern abstraction behind, he made a full commitment to landscape pastel painting. Currently, he works from my his country home in Williston, Vermont where inspiring landscape subjects are just a few steps from the front door. How to Paint a Landscape in Pastel GO FROM PHOTO TO FINISHED PASTEL PAINTING. This pastel painting demonstration starts with a photo taken during a recent drive through the Vermont countryside. Photographing a painting in progress was a whim. When reviewing the photo sequence, it seemed like there was something worth sharing. For a peek into the creative process, scroll down the page and see ‘Small Town Side Street’ develop.
If you are interested in attending an actual pastel workshop, Sean Dye and Michael Chesley Johnson are both excellent instructors.
1. When I return from a field trip I edit the photos on my computer. I make an 8″ x 10″ print and pin it to the edge of my easel to refer to during the painting process.
2. At this stage we are working with conte crayon on Wallis museum grade paper. An outline sketch helps to place the landscape elements on the page. I have no hard and fast rule about fidelity to the photo but with the exception of the power lines and the traffic light this one follows fairly closely.
3. I continue to shade in the darker area. At some point the pigment begins to fill the tooth of the paper so I switch to a stiff bristle brush dipped in mineral spirits to distribute the pigment and consolidate the tonal masses.
4. Color development begins with a light overall application of pastel. Color choices are based loosely on the photo, however matching the photo color is less important than building color structure from within the pastel palette.
5. Often with landscape snapshots the sky is over exposed. Great opportunity! I chose a warm blue pastel for the large sky area. This choice begins to set a warm color mood and with the long cast shadows helps establish time of day. In full sunlight situations, the sky color appears in the shadows so the choice of a warm blue for the sky helps inform color choices for shadow areas.
6. Colors begin to build up and further develop the morning mood. If a color choice doesn’t fit, I brush off the offending color and try another until I am satisfied. I added more punch to certain key focal areas, made some corrections to the perspective of the red house on the left and refined certain details to make the side street stand out. At last a pastel painting that glows with morning light.
Pastel Demo, Little Red Apples How to Draw Apples with Pastels Step by Step
I just liked the Little Green Apples pastel painting so much that I decided to do another painting of the redder little apples. I will do a demo as I go along. I hope you enjoy seeing how I work.
I’m using Art Spectrum pastel card that comes in 9 x 12 sheets so the surface is a little different from the Kitty Wallis used in the “Little Green Apples.. this surface can’t take quite as much abuse as the
Wallis, but is very good and has a consistent surface. I started with the white and decided it was just too white so scrubbed on a little pastel and smeared it with a brush and alcohol again. Nothing special, it won’t show except where the top layer of pastel is thin and will add a little interest in the background, maybe.
I then sketched in the placement of the apples with a yellow pastel pencil, you may be able to see that. I then formed the apples with some green pastel to vibrate through the red. I use a mixture of soft pastels.
Next I added the base colors and start the shadows. I like to work all over the painting. Artists that do fine detail, realistic paintings tend to start in the upper corner and work down to keep from touching what they have done or keep the pastel dust from falling on a part already finished.
To prevent the pastel from falling on my painting, I work with the easel upright and tilted slightly toward me. Gene made me a little tray that hangs on the easel to catch the pastel dust. You can make a tray with newspaper or aluminum foil. I also like to work standing up. I can step back easier and don’t get too focused in one spot. I keep a
piece of vinyl down to cover the floor and stand on some foam pads to save the old legs! I’m doing this painting in New Mexico in our summer rental. At home I have a rubber mat to stand on like is used in a machine shop or under heavy loads on a truck.
I began to develop the apples, working from the back to the front. I use a variety of greens and reds so that the apples are not copies of one another. I began to work on the cloth as well so that I get some of the reds, greens and a little yellow into the background. I began to add a little purple in the shadows.
I continued to develop the apples and cloth. Adding some variety of colors. The highlights on the red are a very pale green to make it pop and look shiny. I also used a darker green for the reflections.
I scumbled some yellow and green onto the red cloth to soften it and make the apples stand out more. To scumble with the pastels I drag, very lightly, a different color over the color on the painting. I blend this with a hard pastel in a similar color rather than using my fingers too much. When you blend pastels you push them flat and they loose some of their brilliance. I do blend in the shadows and in skies sometimes or to make something look soft. Untouched pastels reflect more light off the pigment crystals or odd shapes and give more life to a painting.
Here is the set up. I did not brighten the photo to show that the color is closer to the apples in my painting, but you get the idea.
I also left the leaves out of the painting as they had wilted by the time I got to them.
Working from life rather than a photo allows you to see color in the shadows. A photo washes out the highlights as well. I work from life whenever I can. Sketching or painting. I enjoy plein air. Maybe the next demo can be a landscape.
