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Pastel Painting Demo Step by Step

This document provides step-by-step instructions for painting winter grasses using pastels over a watercolor underpainting. It describes using various colors of pastels to build up layers representing sky, clouds, trees, leaves, and grasses over a background of watercolor washes. The goal is to capture the bright glow and movement of winter grasses against snow.

Uploaded by

Jessica Hibbert
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We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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71 views8 pages

Pastel Painting Demo Step by Step

This document provides step-by-step instructions for painting winter grasses using pastels over a watercolor underpainting. It describes using various colors of pastels to build up layers representing sky, clouds, trees, leaves, and grasses over a background of watercolor washes. The goal is to capture the bright glow and movement of winter grasses against snow.

Uploaded by

Jessica Hibbert
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Pastel Painting Demo Step by Step

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Filed under Landscape/Plein Air- Pastels

About Christine Kane


Christine Kane is a pastel and watercolor artist who is inspired by the Midwest landscape and its
seasons. To find new ideas for her paintings, she hikes in the forest preserves during all seasons.
Christine began drawing at an early age. She focused her education on art and has a degree in
Graphic Design. She is continuing her studies and is currently pursuing a degree in Natural
Resources.
Translating weather is also evident in her work. Weather makes a landscape painting come to life.
How I love to show leaves blowing in the Autumn time, snow falling in winter, or a beautiful
thunderstorm approaching in my summer paintings.
Christine finds Gods handwork in all aspects of nature and tries to translate her awe and reverence
in her artwork. Never disappointed, she relies on His creation for inspiration.
To learn more about Christine and to view more of her work, please visit her site by following
the link below:
==> http://letspaintnature.com/
Christines work can be viewed at the LaGrange Art Gallery

Lets Paint Winter Grasses!


Pastel Painting Demo by Christine Kane

Theres something wonderful about winter grasses. Could it be that bright warm golden glow? Could
it be the way they sound bending in the wind? Could it be the way they poke out of the snow? Yes,

all of these above make winter grasses so special. This picture was taken on a hike last winter in
Spears Woods. Lets get going and paint winter grasses in pastels with a watercolor underwash.

Step 1: I am using an 810 Ampersand Pastelbord. Take a charcoal pencil and make a quick
sketch.

Step 2: Turn the board upside-down. We are going to paint the background with watercolors and we
want the colors to blend. Gravity is going to pull the paint down, so use the lightest color first.
Starting with the horizon line, paint manganese blue. In the middle paint with french ultramarine and
at the bottom paint a mauve color.

Step 3: While the board is still wet, paint the distant trees by mixing burnt umber and french
ultramarine blue watercolor paints. Start at the horizon line and paint downward making flicking
stokes at the end. Dont paint straight across, make a scalloped edge to represent various tree sizes.
Dry the board with a hair dryer.

Step 4: After the board is dry turn it right side up. Now paint the bottom. I like to add color under my
snow, so I used some blue on my palette and also alizarin crimson. Where the patches of grass will
be, take your background tree color and paint spots in the snow. We are done with watercolors.
Moving on to pastels.

Step 5: POW POW POW! Look how the pastel color almost jumps off the page! Awesome! I am
using Rembrandt pastels; take a dark sky blue and start at the top. Dont cover every little inch, let
some of the purple watercolor wash show through. In the middle of the sky use a medium sky blue
pastel and closer to the horizon, use a very light sky blue. Where the sky touches the top of the
distant trees, go in and out, suggesting some branches.

Step 6: Now, I could have stopped at just a blue sky (the easy way out), but my picture has terrific
altocumulus clouds and those clouds typically mean changing weather within a day and I want to
capture that! Altocumulus clouds are not the easiest thing in the world to paint, but is easy going to
move you up to the next level? Is easy going to challenge you? Will it make you a stronger artist?
No way, it will not.
We will always move forward no matter what challenges we face. We will not slide backwards. If we
fail, we will learn what not to do next time and because we learned something, we can not fail. Do
you see!?! You can not fail.

For the clouds, I am using a medium-light purple/gray pastel (see picture). Make small circular
clouds in the sky. Space them out a bit so the blue of the sky shows through. Next take a light
purple/gray pastel and paint the top and middle of each cloud. Finally, take the light blue pastel for
the sky and paint the top of each cloud.

Here is how the sky turned out. Just a bunch of circular clouds and in the distance, horizontal lines.
Nice.

Step 7: Take a dark blue pastel pencil and draw in some trees. The ones to the left are further back
and will be behind the grasses. The one to the right is closer to the foreground.

Step 8: Paint some oak leaves. I used a dark blue pastel for the base color and then a dark
burgundy pastel on top. If I dont paint these dark colors first, the bright leaves will not show up. We
need contrast.

Step 9: Paint a light burgundy pastel on the tree. Dont cover the whole thing, let some dark spots
show through.

Step 10: Now for those fantastic grasses! Just like the oak tree, I need contrast. If I started painting
with a yellow grass color, the grasses would not pop out. I need something dark behind it. I took the
same dark burgundy pastel that I used for the tree and painted in a patch of grass. Then I took the
light burgundy pastel and made some thin sweeping lines. Using the lightest blue for the sky, I paint
some snow on the bottom.

Step 11: Take a golden tan pastel and make some more sweeping lines over the burgundy grass.
Now doesnt that stand out? Looks great.

Blazing Winter Grasses 108 pastel


Step 12 Final: Make some more grasses using the same steps as before on the right side of the
painting. Fill in the rest of the snow with medium and lightest blue pastel. To add some sparkle, paint
a few oak leaves pure orange. Yesssssss!
I hope you enjoyed this free step-by-step pastel demonstration on how to paint winter grasses.
Remember, if you try this yourself, you can upload your results on the Lets Paint Nature Facebook
page.

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