Rainbow Succulent Pastel Painting Progress

 

I bet most of you were wondering where this piece disappeared to? Well, it been sitting where it started this whole time - on my art easel just waiting for me to pick up a pastel again. This past week, I did and finished another succulent in the composition.

 

It was good to be using the pastels again - and even better just being in the art studio. Work and garden life have kept me super busy, and I was so happy to have a moment to sit, listen to music, sip some wine and work on some art. I'll openly admit: it will probably be another year or two till this slow-as-molasses piece is complete. Oh well ;)

 

Succlent Pastel Painting Progress

...just a quick check-in with the latest progress on my pastel painting. I have one entire plant complete on it, and pretty much 1/4 the way done! Yippie! Feels good to be 'getting it done'. I just got home from night shift, so now off to bed for me to sleep all day on this rainy day (the perfect sort of sleeping-day)...

Pastel Work In Progress (WIP)

More progress on my succulent pastel painting. I got a lot done the other night, and I am almost done one succulent! The reason I have started on the plant below before finishing the top one is a 'pastel-based' reason: pastels smudge. In order not to smudge work I've already completed, I'm working in a diagonal sort of direction: I do a bit of the top parts, and then a bit of the parts below that. Some people may have the skill to work with the pastels on all sections at the same time - but I rest my hand on the page to support it, so that method wouldn't quite work out for me.

And a juicy shot of all the beautiful pastels. The ones I'm using for this piece are in the box on the bottom right. The other two boxes are where I'm 'pulling' my colours from. The ones I'm using don't look super vivid, but that's because they're coated in the dust from me handling other colours. It's a combination of Mount Vision pastels (majority) and Rembrandt pastels They are quite bright :)

Getting A Little Dusty Again

 It's been a long while since I've created a true, 100%, soft pastel painting. I've had the urge to dig them out all winter, but just had no idea what to create - a complete blank slate. Also add to that, the challenge of creating with them again. I was just a newbie still when I set them aside for awhile, so picking them up again would not be a picnic at all. I decided to go with a composition of succulents. I really like them - I think they're super cute - and I've been wanting to create a colourful piece with them for some time. This would also allow me to highlight an aspect of the soft pastel medium that some people do not realize: they are rediculusly colourful!



I began by sketching the image on to ColourFix Suede pastel board - a good pastel painting begins with a good sketch. Then I continued with an underpainting using my Pan Pastels. They are just so easy to use to create a fast and effective underpainting. This is what I've called its "grizzly" phase - the ugly phase. I tried to use completmently colours here, so the final painting will look more opposite than what is displayed here. I sprayed it all with a light alcohol mist (the rubbing alcohol sort, not the vodka alcohol sort) to set the pastels, so that they wouldn't blend with the layers I will be applying on top, and therefore will not make it 'muddy'. This was the easy part. From here, it was all total concentration and complete loss of time...

 



I started at the top left - to work my way across and down, in an effort to not smudge the entire piece. These first two succulent "leaves" are where I sort of determined the style of this painting. I remind you, I haven't used pastels in so long - so I knew what I wanted to do, but didn't know how exactly I would achieve it, and what sort of style it would end up looking like. I know it sound silly - I'm sure there's some artists who understand this :)

 

 This is where it stood when I finished last night. It's not much, but it's almost four hours of work - yes, this piece is going to take ages to complete. But I'm hoping when it's all done, it will be amazing and work every second :) 

 



Above are the pastels I have used to date. It's just under 40 different colours and shades, and I'm sure before I'm finished, more will be added.

Spring Tulips Art Journal Page

"Spring Tulips" - Mixed Media Art Journal Page

Happy Tuesday everyone! Today is my Saturday - a mid-week day off for working the weekend :) I would like to share an art journal page today that I made a couple days ago. It started off as just a stamped background as you see below, and then I just added more and more layers. I finished the background with a semi-transparent layer of yellow-green paint. This colour is just so fresh and screams spring and summer to me :)

After getting a good background, I added a layer of clear pastel ground. I stamped a little bit, and then drew in the flowers with pastel pencils. Being softer than pencil crayons, they cover wonderfully and are so very vibrant.

I finished off with some script, also in pastel pencil.

Fresh flowers in the house really do make me so happy. I love that for the past month, I've been able to go out and cut different flowers for my vase: tulips, daffodils, lilacs and poppies.

Materials used: Unity stamps (s April SMAK kit, February Kit of the Month, ikat love and Jar of Sunshine), archival stamping inks, aquamarkers, acrylic paint, Golden clear pastel ground, pastel pencils.

I have also entered this piece in the Unity Inspired Challenge :)

Summer Evening Moonrise Pastel Painting

Summer Evening Moonrise - Original Pastel Painting, available matted

This colourful, and very vibrant pastel painting is now available in my online shop, www.jellybeans.etsy.com. I must say, I love so much how vibrant pastel paintings can be - so rich with bright pigments. They are extremely lightfast, and in ancient artworks it is often the pastel paintings that outlive the traditional paintings - as they are so pure in pigment.

I created this Pastel painting from one of my photos from last summer, when the moon was at it's largest. 

Lily Pad Trio Pastel Painting Progress

I began taking pictures of the progress of this recent painting, Lily Pad Trio, but then just got so 'involved' in that that I didn't take anymore...typical, I know. What you see above is the pastel underpainting, and below is a wash of rubbing alcohol to 'set' the colours in.

And, below is the final piece:

"Lily Pad Trio" - Pastel, 5x7"

Late Summer Meadow Pastel Process

I felt really inspired after staying at James' family cottage last week, and decided to paint in pastels the path that leads up to it from the beach. The photo below is the reference that I used. As you can tell, I took some artistic liberty in taking out some of the background imagery- espcially my car sitting there!

I started off with an underpainting. Trying to get values right and set the tone for the piece. Most times, this the 'ugly-phase', but I must say that I really liked it.

I didn't use an alcohol wash on this one, so I just kept layering the pastels. Below you see the trees mostly finished, I tweak them a bit at the end:

This is the time that I really step back. It's "done", but not really done. I go and do something else, and then come back to it. It looks good in my eye, but looking back at my previous steps, I realize I want to incorporate more of the cooler colours at the bottom of the piece. The colours are a bit off in this picture as it was very late at night when I look it.

Here's a shot of all the eye candy...pastels are always so pretty to look at! It may seem that I have a lot, but my collection is by far very modest compared to more established pastel artists. The pastel pencils were used mostly for outlining, thin bits and my signature in the end. It was mostly my mount visions and rembrants that I used for this piece, with the odd unison (although I love my unisons as equally, I just didn't have the right colours for this particular piece).

 Below are the specific pastels that I used for this piece. You can see that they're quite 'dirty' with colours of the other pieces, I'll have to clean them before putting them back into the boxes. Almost 40 different colours for one painting!

 And...the final piece:

"Late Summer Meadow" - Pastel, 9x12"

I do feel that I am improving with the pastels. Comparing this piece to my other 'path' piece, this one seems more finished and cohesive. I very much enjoyed being able to use one of my vibrant, almost neon-orange pastels that have been sitting untouched since I purchased the set (290, I think), along with many of the colours from the Mount Vision 'Tropical' Set - perfect for the warm summer colours.

Fish WIP Pastel..and some randomness

As you can see....I haven't gotten too much further with my Betta pastel. I got a little stumped on the end tail since there is some curvy bits so I'm taking it slow so that I get it right. I've also been working on a couple commission paintings on the side - getting sketches and colour swatches ready for my clients.

Exciting news: I got featured on the blog Marketing Creativity, you can see my interview by Lisa, here. She has a very beautiful blog with lots of great articles that are perfect for all those creative hearts out there!

Oreo, I must say, is not as busy as I have been...he's just lounging around as he always does - the life of a cat hehe.

And one last random thought: 

This song has been in my head all week!

Pink Sky Pastel Landscape

"Pink Sky" - ACEO Pastel (2.5x3.5"), Available.

I created this little beauty last night right before bed. I got a jolt of inspiration from seeing my lovely pastels all over my desk, and went to work. It was created with my Mount Vision pastels, with some of the pastel pencils for the smaller details. Done on 240lb watercolour paper treated with Colourfix (Pre-made paper by Colourfix). It's currently available for sale in my online shop.

Fish WIP Pastel

I finished the top fin on this piece last night. It was probably the easiest part...now all the rest will really be a challenge ...

Fish WIP Pastel

A small 4x6" pastel painting of my new fish that I started yesterday. I started with an alcohol pastel wash with remembrant pastels, and I am now doing the majority of the fish in CarbOthello pastel pencils. Hoping to get the top fin done tonight. I think the biggest challenge is going to be the scales.

Round Bales Pastel Landscape Painting

Round Bales - 8x10" Pastel Painting

I got some new pastels today, so I thought I would take some of them to create a painting. I decided to create this piece using a selection of pastels from my small Unison set.

Here is my process:

Quick basic sketch to place shapes

Blocked in colour, and used alcohol to lock it in (not shown)

All done!

Round Bales is available for sale in my Etsy store, and it comes matted as do the rest of my pastel paintings:

Shine Through Pastel Painting

'Shine Through' - Pastel painting; Available

I put the finishing 'tweaks' on my pastel painting, 'Shine Through' tonight. I'm pretty happy with how it went, and I learnt a lot along the way. 

I love detail shots, as I'm sure you've all realized, so here it is:

And for those who might be curious, here are all the pastels I used, mostly Mount Visions and NuPastels. There's two Schmincke, one Ludwig and one Richardson. This picture is after I cleaned them all up from working with them...they're not so lovely right after a painting when they're horribly dirty! 

That's right if you counted - it's over 50 different pastel colours! Some are very evident where they are, and others not so much. I literally used up about half of my collection of pastels to create this piece, and I was still 'searching' for the right colour sometimes, and not finding it. 

Pastel Landscape Progress

Another progress shot for my pastel painting...it's almost done! I did a few more tweets to it, and might have a few more when I look at it again tonight. Then, maybe, it will be done :) I just really want that background sun to glow!

Pastel Landscape Process

I started a new pastel landscape last night:

And, pastel underpainting done; I know - doesn't look impressive at all hehe

I wanted to try using alcohol to "set" the under-painting pastel, and it worked like a charm:

For the underpainting, I used these NuPastels:

Now I just have to let the little drops finish drying, and press it a little to get the little wave out of it...

Early Autumn Birches Pastel Painting

Early Autumn Birches - 8x10" Pastel Painting

I got some better images of my Pastel painting from yesterday night today. Early Autumn Birches is also available for sale in my online shop, it comes matted and ready to pop into a frame!

Here are some more details: