Let’s Mix Our Own Watercolor Pastels: Warm Colors

1. Welcome to this Class: Do you love pastel colors? Well, what if I tell you that you can mix your own pastel shades, so you wouldn't need to buy new pigments. That's exactly what we'll do in this class. Since you supported my previous color mixing classes, I will launch a series of pastel mixing tutorials, starting with the warm colors, including our reds or pinks, oranges and yellows. We'll start off with the basic formula of mixing these creamy shades. Test out different pigments, create the muted versions, adjust dull pastel shades, share alternative color recipes, and even recreate ready mixed pastels like these. Then we'll apply what we learned and recolor some of Sargent's paintings and create these mini composition studies. You can either focus on color mixing and just create lots of swatches or go extra and work on the simple or complicated versions of our studies. No matter what your skill level is, you're welcome to join in the fun. To reward your effort in sticking with me throughout the class, I prepared a gift for you. So grab your materials, download the class guide, and find out how to claim your gift in the next video. Uh 2. A Gift for You: Our goal for this class is to mix pastel colors and do lots of swatches, featuring various creamy red, orange and yellow shades. You have different options for your class project. You can take a photo of your swatches, as scanned copy would also do. Be creative and use different shapes. For example, these birds, do simple version of our composition studies or go extra and work on the complicated ones. Or you may also share a photo of everything you did in this class. Don't worry. Your efforts will be rewarded. I prepared an eBook containing over 50 swatches of beautiful pastel colors. You can claim yours once you finish this class, upload a project, share your thoughts through an honest class review, and shoot me an email so I can send it back to you. Does this get you excited? Great. Let's prepare our materials in the next video. 3. Please Prepare These: Okay. I'm so excited to share with you my discoveries for this class, but let us prepare our materials first. You'll need some watercolor paper. For most of the demos, I will be using this Bao Hu 100% cotton watercolor paper, but you can also use student grade papers like this month Mart pad. Watercolor paints. Pastel colors are optional, but you'll need primary colors and white watercolor paints or gouache. I have here quinacridone red, cadmium yellow light, and palo blue. I have two types of whites Chinese white and titanium white. I also squeezed in white gouache in here as an alternative. And in case you don't have pastel colors, that's totally fine. I just want to show you substitute pigments and use them in comparing our own shades later. It doesn't matter which brushes you use, just grab whichever is comfortable enough for mixing and something that you're already familiar with. These brushes have been with me since 2018, and they still work. And, of course, a palette to mix in your colors, a water jar, and some rag or paper towel to rinse off your brushes. Additionally, Algra flat brushes later for our simple composition studies and this pretty ticket shaped watercolor paper from pot and date. But any paper will do. Actually, this are scrap papers. It doesn't matter. We're here to learn and not to make a masterpiece. So once you have your materials ready, I'll see you in the next video and let's get started. 4. Pastel Pinks / Reds: Let's get started with a neutral mix of quinacridone bread, meaning there's just enough water and paint to get this consistency. Then add more water to the mixture. Immediately, you'll get a pastel version already by maximizing the transparency of water colors. But there are times when this doesn't work, since it's too transparent. In that case, you can mix your colors with any white. Let's say Chinese white. As soon as we mix it with our quinacridone red, it becomes opaque and turns into this lovely pastel pink. See the difference between the one mixed with water and the one mixed with white. Next up, we have here titanium white. This pan is a bit dirty, but it's all good. You can clean up yours if in case it bothers you. It looks a bit duller than the one mixed with Chinese white. But let's use this again later. Now, what if you don't have these white pigments? But you have a pastel color from the same family instead. For example, we have here rose cocktail from ome. Let's use this to transform our quinacrodone red into a pastel tone. Of course, the ratio of the pigments will play an important part here. Alternatively, you can also use white gauche to turn your color into a pastel one. It's also a good introduction to this medium. Here we have different versions of our pastel queen red mixed with butter, Chinese white, titanium white, pastel pink, and the one mixed with quash. Go ahead and grab any pink or red from your palette. Just to show you some more example, here's magenta, Pyl red, cadmium red, and upper pink in their pastel versions using Chinese white, titanium white, rose cocktail, and guash. 5. Pigment Ratio: Another thing that we have to consider is the amount of white or pastel pigment that we mix with the original or base color. For example, this is the mixture we used for this watch. But what will happen if we add more pink or red? Obviously, it will turn darker and lean towards the base color. Now, when we add more white, it becomes lighter. And as you add more white pigment, it will also become more opaque, creamier, and naturally lighter. The three here use the same pigments, quinacridone red with white. But by varying the ratio of each pigment will achieve different shades. I've tried it on other two colors which are crimson and maroon by Gansai tambi you can see that as we add more white, the shade changes pretty obvious that they're from the same family. Go ahead and try it, create some swatches, adjust the ratio, and see how it goes. But 6. Pink Variations: Next, let me show you that if you use a different pigment, then obviously, you'll have a different resulting mixture. I have here a Paul Rubin's simpler kit, which features various pigments from the same red family, but some of them are close to red to pink or magenta. Let's give them a try and see what kind of pastel colors they'll make if we mix them with white, pastel colors or even guash. I'll prepare these colors right here. We have rose red, crimson red, peach light, magenta, Chinese red, madder red, and then let's mix itch with white quash. Feel free to use Chinese white or titanium white, or even a ready mixed pastel color from the same family. This is Rose red's pastel version. Followed by crimson red. They're different, right? Next is ***** light, which looks like opera rose. Then magenta in its pastel version. Followed by Chinese red, which is close to a true red, my opinion. Then we have madder red, which is a cool red. Which one do you like the most? Let's take a closer look. And here I even added some pigments like scarlet, cadmium red, and maroon. And as you can see, they all have this pastel and creamy look. But depending on the pigment you're using, you'll have a different result. I'm looking forward to see which colors you'll work with. So don't forget to upload a photo of your swatch in the project's gallery. 7. Dull Pastel Pinks: Earlier, we mixed a dull version of our pink. Now, let me share with you how I adjust a mixture in case it gets too dull like this, either from the pigments used or adding too much white on it. To also give justice the titanium white, I cleaned my pan a bit. Sorry about that. Now it's cleaner. Let's add some on our palette and mix it with a bit of quinacridone red. It still looks a bit dull. You can either add more of the pink pigment and achieve a vibrant pastel like this. But what if you needed a lighter pastel? When you add more white, it gets duller and less saturated. What we can do is add a bit of yellow to the mixture. Now, it becomes a little bit more vibrant, right? But be careful if you add too much yellow, then it will start turning into a pastel orange. Practice adding a bit of yellow to achieve this shade. Color is a personal preference, so keep adjusting until you achieve the shade that you love. Here's our swatch, an equal mixture of pink and white, more pink, more white, a tiny bit of yellow, and more yellow to the mixture. Here, I also experimented with rose red with a bit of yellow, and then a bit of orange. And another one is Chinese red with a bit of yellow and a bit of orange. Give it a try and let's see what you experimented with. 8. Muted Pinks: We've already covered the basics of creating a pastel shade. But let's say you're into muted colors. How do we achieve that? And we're filling this pink. Let's use whatever's left on our palette now, to get a muted version of our pastel color, one Shure way is mixing it with a tiny bit of its complimentary color. If you took any of my color mixing class, you should already have an idea about this. Complimentary colors sit opposite each other in the color wheel. For pink, which is also grouped with red, its complimentary color is green. Using our limited palette, let's mix yellow and blue to get green and slowly add it to the pink puddle. Did you see that? Did you see how the shade instantly turned into a muted pastel? Let's try it on our paper. This is so lovely. I am a fan of muted pastels. Now, what if we mix our pink with a pastel green instead? This is celadon bi ume. Let's see how it goes. Okay. Obviously, this is too much, and you'll know it if the color starts to turn into a neutral color instead. Let's add back pink to the mixture, and here we have another shade of a muted pink. Of course, you can also use convenient green mixture like these watches. We have quinacridone red here, mixed with Hooker's green, permanent green, viridian, olive and celadon. Which one do you like best? And what colors will you be experimenting with? 9. Same Family: Right. I love how our swatch is looking right now. What about you? Another experiment I'd encourage you to do is mixing pigments from the same family. Say you have these two very different pinks, which have already been mixed with white from the earlier exercises. Try and combine the two, and you'll get yet another version of a pastel pink. What about this two? Looking good, right? My goodness, this is such a wonderful color. It's a lighted version of this one. Try exploring the different colors that you got and experiment creating their pastel versions. Now, what if we mixed everything in here? Since they're from the same family, we won't be too scared of mixing muddy or dirty pastels. Here I have another swatch where I mixed quinacerdon red with other reds and pinks. Here I added maroon, vermilion, mater red, scarlet, magenta, cadmium red, and Chinese red. What colors will you be playing with? 10. Student Grade: I did mention earlier that using a student grade paper is good enough in testing your swatches. I have a month mart watercolor pad here. For the earlier exercises, I've been using a 100% cotton paper. Let's see if the color becomes dull if you use a more affordable paper. Use whatever is left on your palette, doesn't matter. Let's refill since we've used up most of the pigment and swatch. The color still looks okay to me. What do you think? The reason I'm showing this to you is because I have friends who thought that they should always use 100% cotton paper when studying watercolors. But there are certain exercises where student grade papers come in handy. Don't get too pressured and be limited by the materials available to you, okay? There are instances, of course, that a cotton paper is the best choice, but for our fun little experiments, student grade papers would do. Of course, it's a different story if you use a paper not intended for watercolor, like a copy paper or Oslo paper. 11. Pastel Oranges: Moving on to oranges. Of course, you can always use ready mixed oranges like red orange, autumn orange, brown, burnt sienna, and light red. Yes, browns belong to oranges, too, and I'll show you later. Or you might want to mix your own by combining red or pink with yellow. Here's my Paul Ruben sampler pack for yellow pigments. Let's start with our original colors here. Mix yellow and pink to produce orange. Again, depending on the amount of each pigment, the shade will vary. If you want a yellow orange, then add more yellow. For a red orange, then add more red or pink. And for a neutral orange, try and get an equal mixture. Mix more water, swatch, and you'll get this version of light orange. For comparison, let's try red orange and add more water, and this is how it looks. Next is brown by Sakurakoi. Browns also belong to the orange family. If you look closely in this artist color wheel by Bruce McEvoy, you'll see that they're grouped together. Next is burnt sienna mixed with water. And lastly, light red. See, they're close to each other. Experiment further by mixing the other alternative pigments to produce pastel colors. This is pink and yellow mixed with Chinese white, then red orange mixed with guash. For the next one, mix brown with titanium white, then burn sienna with white quash again. Lastly, light red with John brilliant. Another good alternative is beige like natural beige and rose beige from Gansai tambi. So what do we have here, a nice range of skin tone colors. Orange is a part pink and a part yellow. That means this pastel pink should also be a good alternative in mixing pastel oranges. Let's give it a try. I'll refill my original orange mixture, yellow plus pink, and then add rose cocktail, this pastel pink. It's a bit different, but it can also work. Add more yellow for a different version and try adding more pink for another shade. Experiment by adding more of that ready mixed pastel pink. This means we can alternately use pastel yellow or pastel pink to make the mixture lighter and creamier. I also tried other pigments from the orange family. We have here vermilion hue with its neutral, plus water, plus titanium white, plus John Brilliant, and plus Rose cocktail versions. Then we have transparent Pyle orange, autumn orange and Van **** brown. What pigments are you working with? Let me know in the discussion stab or share a photo of your swatch in the project's gallery. 12. Orange Variations: We've tried convenient orange pigments earlier. Now it's time to test different yellow and red or pink combinations to create our own oranges. Whatever pigments are available to you, please just make use of them and have fun mixing and matching colors. For me, the colors available are lemon yellow, permanent yellow, Indian yellow, and yellow sienna. For reds or pinks, I got peach light, magenta, vermilion hue, which is already an orange by itself, but let's just use it and then scarlet. Now, mix them together, adjust as needed. This is our first combination and then convert that into a pastel color by mixing any white or pastel that you need. This is a shade where Chinese white was added. Let's move on to the second set, permanent yellow plus magenta, a different kind of orange, right. Adjust and add some pigments for different variations. Now, l mix in titanium white this time, and we'll keep adding to achieve various shades of this pastel orange. Next pair is Indian red and vermilion. Mix together, and you'll get this bright orange. See? It's so fun experimenting with them. I'm now using whitewash to produce a pastel orange. This shows that you shouldn't feel constrained just because you're not getting the exact 100% shade that I'm showing you. Explore, discover and learn. Our last pair is sienna and scarlet. I'm adding more sienna since this one's really transparent. And here goes another shade of orange. For its pastel version, I'm adding John Brilliant first. And for comparison, let's try the pink pastel or rose cocktail pigment. Adjust the mixture as needed and swatch. Aren't they beautiful? I've also experimented with different combinations. Here we have naples yellow deep and carmine. And then we have Hansa yellow and opera pink, a bit lighter than the first one. Then we have bordeaux plus quinacridone gold. Then we have cadmium red and cadmium yellow light. This is a bit close to skin tones. What do you think? What colors did you use? 13. Muted Orange: Of course, let's not forget how to mix muted oranges. It's complimentary color is blue. So let's introduce that to the mixture. Let's touch up this beautiful mixtures that we already have from the last exercise and add blue. This is palo blue. Use a bit and create a muted version. Alternatively, we can use a pastel blue. This is King's blue, close to verdial blue. And you'll see that it immediately changes the saturation of this orange. Not too much, though, or it will turn into a neutral color. More often than not, brown. But that works well if you're looking for a skin tone shade. You can also pick other blues like turquoise blue or a dark blue like indigo. Then it would obviously turn into a darker one. What about a granulating blue like ultramarine? Yes, it works fine, too. Explore your colors. Ask what will happen if I mix this too. Will it be pretty or not? If it is, then good. If not, then we definitely learn something new. Oh, and what about a sea blue or a marine blue? This really tones down this mixture. I also experimented with other blue mixtures. We have Autumn orange, cadmium orange, and light red mixed with John Brilliant for comparison. For the second row, I mixed in a bit of royal blue, and you can see how most of them turned into a brownish color. For the third row, I tried compost blue, which is a bit lighter than the previous one. And lastly, cerulean blue. I love how bits of cerulean blue, because this one is granulating is showing through the mixture. What about you? What colors will you be playing with? 14. Pastel Yellows: Now it's time for yellow pastels, the last color group for this class. I'll breeze through this first part of the demo since you already know the basic recipe of creating pastel versions of our colors. I am cleaning up my yellow a bit to avoid muddy mixtures, and you might want to do the same if yours is looking like mine. This is cadmium yellow light again. One of my go tos in painting landscapes, portraits, and florals. I've prepared five puddles of my yellow here. The first one is a neutral mix, half and half paint and water. Or as long as you have this consistency, that would do. Add more water for a transparent pastel version. Next, let's add Chinese white, which makes this more opaque. And then followed by titanium white, which I personally think is even more opaque than the previous one. Mix in guash for the next watch so far so good. And finally, try out ready mixed pastel colors like Bige or John Brilliant and play around with the colors. I'm going first with John Brilliant. Mix and swatch. I also have natural Bige by CuritakeGansi Tambi. Let's give this a try. Followed by a version mixed with Rose Bage by Gansai Tambi again. Not much of a difference, right? And then I have here bright yellow red by Paul Rubens, but I think it's just the same with John Brilliant. And lastly, bright yellow from the same sampler pack. It's closer to yellow compared with the other one. I'm sure you have a yellow pigment in your basic set, so go ahead and play with them. Here are other yellows I converted into their pastel versions by adding white pigments, beige and quash. We have yellow ochre. We have nickel Azuyellow and quinacredone gold. 15. Yellow Variations: Looking at our swatch, I like the ones mixed with beige the most, so let's test out other yellows in the sampler pack to see how they look. We have permanent lemon yellow, permanent yellow light, permanent yellow deep. Indian yellow and yellow sienna. Some of these colors might also look like yours, but only with a different name. I'll go ahead and swatch the original color. This is permanent lemon, followed by their pastel version by mixing the different beige pigments here. Adjust as needed by adding more beige or more yellow. Let's do the same with the next pigment, permanent yellow light, base color first, the pastel version, and then adjust to see other variations. Permanent yellow deep next, a deep color, indeed. Convert that into a pastel color and swatch. Next, we have Indian yellow. Add Bige, keep adjusting and produce different shades. This is so relaxing. I hope the same is true for you. Lastly, yellow sienna. This is a transparent yellow and is easily overpowered by Bige. So keep adjusting as you see fit. Go ahead and swatch your yellows, but here are other pigments I tried with Chinese white for their pastel version. Gambogova, lemon yellow, naples yellow deep, hansa yellow light, quinacerdone gold, Nickel Azo yellow, permanent yellow deep, and yellow ochre. What colors are you going to try? 16. Muted Yellow: Now it's time to mix muted yellows. Checking our color wheel here, its complementary colors is purple. We have here our base color cadmium yellow light. Let's try mixing it with periwinkle, a pastel purple. Add a bit of that and swatch. Remember not to mix in too much or you'll get this dirty yellow color. Refilling the puddle I got here and adding Chinese white back to the mixture. Now, what we have here is mineral violet. Mix in a bit of that color and try it out on paper. I also have here carbazle violet, which is a staining one. So make sure to use a tiny bit if you also have this pigment. I'm also curious to see the muted version of this permanent yellow deep, so I'll refill my puddle here and mix it with white quash. Let's try combining periwinkle with it first. See, this is a tone down version compared to this watch we did earlier. It's so easy to get yellows dirty, so be careful in picking up your pigments. Permanent yellow deep pastel again, now mixed with mineral violet. In case you don't have these purples, of course, you can mix your own using a limited palette. Pink plus blue, plus pastel yellow. This is a very muted yellow that we got here. To make a lighter and cleaner version, we can add back yellow to the mixture. This might look dirty compared to the other swatches we did earlier, but these colors can also be useful when painting shadows. Here are other yellows mixed with their complementary colors such as ultramarine violet, dioxas and purple and periwinkle, and you can see the difference between the one where we just used white. We have titanium yellow, yellow ochre, and queen nacerdoneG. Just grab any yellows and violets from your palate and experiment. 17. Recreating Pastels: Now that we're done with our pastel red or pink, orange and yellow, let's now discuss how we can recreate a pastel color. For example, we have John Brilliant here, and we're curious whether or not we can recreate this color by using the pigments already available to us. For comparison, here's a swatch of John Brilliant. We did our warm pastels earlier, but there's no color close to this one, so where do we even begin? First up, do a quick research for the pigments used in John Brilliant. Here we can see that it's composed of PO 20, PW six, and PY 37. But what do these codes mean? If it's your first time encountering them, it's okay. I'm just giking out with my colors. We can also check the pigment name that each code represents. In this case, PO 20 is cadmium orange, PW six is titanium white, and PY 37 is cadmium yellow middle or D. I don't have cadmium orange, but I have cadmium red orange. I have titanium white, and I have cadmium yellow light, not deep or middle. Let's see if by using these pigments, we can still mimic how John Brilliant looks. Mix and experiment, adjust if needed, and ask yourself, will this work? It's a bit close, isn't it? But what if you don't have these colors? Let's go back to our limited palette, quinacidone red, cadmium yellow light, sal blue, and our white pigments. In case you don't have cadmium orange, well, we know that orange is pink plus yellow. So let's do that. And instead of titanium light, let's use whitewash instead. Let's mix and find out. Will this work as an alternative? It's a yes for me. It's pretty close. Adjust as needed, add more pink or more white, and then swatch. This only shows how powerful color mixing could be. You don't really have to purchase a new pigment each time you need a new color, but what you have to do is sharpen your color mixing skill, which is what we're doing right now. Add more white and see if we can get closer to John Brilliant. Okay, enough for this color. Now let's move on to shell pink. This one is by Shinhan. Let's do a quick research, and the recipe for shell pink is PO 73, PyroleOnge and PW six, titanium white. I don't have Pyle orange. So what if we just use our limited palette here? And instead of titanium, what if we use Chinese white? Add a bit of quinacridone red. This is pretty far from shell pink. But if you did all of the exercises earlier, you should already have an idea what to mix here to get it closer to shell pink. Yes, you got it. A tiny bit of yellow. Let's watch and see. Hmm. It's a bit closer to this color, right? I think it could work. Okay, let's try another recipe. Rose red plus titanium white, and a bit of yellow. Mix and see. Isn't it so fun to play with colors? Don't get discouraged, though, if you can mix your intended color in your first try. I've been playing around and studying color mixing for over a year now, so I already have an idea how much of each pigment is needed to get the shade that I want. Plus, I did some studies before filming this class, so just keep going. Let's try recreating a different pigment. This is natural Bige by Gansai Tambi. The recipe for this one is PW six titanium white and TY 42 yellow iron oxide. Let's do a quick research for alternative pigments for yellow iron oxide, and the AI here suggests yellow ochre. More often than not, yellow ochre is included in basic watercolor sets. I have here my dirty yellow ochre. Let's recreate that color by mixing in titanium white plus yellow ochre. First try Me looks a bit dull. Let's adjust and add more yellow ochre. And I think this could work. But what if you don't have yellow ochre? Let's go back to our limited palette and use cadmium yellow light. It's too vibrant, so I'll add a tiny bit of pink and white. It could work, but let's see what will happen if we add a bit of blue. Adjust as needed. As you can see, I added more blue than intended. What do you think? Will this work? What about Rose beige by Gansai Tambi? I think we already accidentally mix this we over here. Where we added more quinacredone red to the mixture. Finally, rose cocktail. Let's see if we can recreate this color. Unfortunately, I cannot find online information for the recipe of this particular pigment, so let's just use whatever we have. Let's try Chinese white with a bit of quinacredone red. Obviously, it's too far from rose cocktail, so let's add a bit of yellow. What do you think? Will this serve as an alternative to rose cocktail, adjust as needed, and keep experimenting and swatching. You'll be amazed what you'll learn with these exercises. I also tried other combinations for John Brilliant. We have magenta and hansa yellow, magenta, and yellow ochre, transparent Pyl orange, plus squash and permanent yellow deep plus crimson. And I think the last two are the closest to John Brilliant. For Rose cocktail, I also tried magenta and permanent yellow deep, Opera and Cadm yellow light, Crimson Lake and yellow ochre, and then Quinacridone Bread and John Brilliant. All of these are mixed with white gouache, and I think the closest is the last two. What about you? What colors did you experiment with and what pastel versions are you recreating? 18. Pastel Project 1 : Let's apply what we learned by doing this mini composition studies. But if you want, you can also paint simple birds like these and use the colors that appeal to you or open up the class guide, and there you'll find a simpler version of these abstracted paintings. We will be using John Singer Sargent's artwork as reference. This is the paper that I mentioned earlier. I lease them for the projects because I find them so cute. It's a ticket shaped watercolor paper by potentate. But go ahead and grab whichever material is available to you, okay? I'll also use flat brushes now to avoid being too focused on the tiny details that we can see on the reference photo. Right, for the first study, let's use Sargent's still life with daffodils as a reference. We will focus on the big shapes and recolor this painting using the pastel variations we tried and mixed earlier. Our goal here is to test out the colors and grade something that feels more like a finished project rather than just swatches. But it's all good if you only want to do the swatches and focus on studying, mixing your colors, okay? Let's start with the pastel yellow for the base of the flowers. Then mix in a bit of pink for a flesh color for the table. As we reach the bottom, add blue to desaturate that pastel brown, and this will make our study look more complicated. Mix in a pastel orange and apply where the shadows of the flowers are. Again, focus on the abstract shapes. If you squint your eyes, it will blur out, and the dark shapes will really pop out. Next, makes a darker brown. We need to use contrasting colors for the shapes to pop out. So it also means that we're not only mixing and using pastel colors all the time, okay? For variation, add more pink to that dark brown and negatively paint around the flowers. Don't get to work up with the flowers shape. Now hold the flat brush upright and use the tip to draw some lines in the background. Mix orange, pink plus yellow, and then paint these two shapes here, which are I think they're wine glasses, but don't worry too much about the details. Just paint the big shapes that you see. Now on to the shadows. Let's use brown again and let us define the vase that holds the daffodils. Focus where the shadows are. Adjust the colors to achieve different shades as needed. Then copy the reflection and use the same orange that we use on the glasses. Now, let's add more yellow and with single stroke. Let's try to define some petals. A suggestion would do. No need for it to be too realistic, okay? We're now going back and adding more shadows that we see on the table. I hope by this time you would appreciate that by using a limited palette, the decision process is so much easier as we don't need to decide which color to pick because we are limited to a few colors only. It's looking good now. Some final touch, and we're done. How did your project go? Did you choose the simple or the more complicated version, whichever you pick, let us see it and share it with others. So go ahead and upload it in the project's gallery. 19. Pastel Project 2: For the second project, I'll keep using Guache to make the pastel versions of my colors. Now we're looking at Sargent's landscape study at San Vigilo Lake of Garda. You will see that I changed the placement of some of the elements to match the portrait orientation of the paper. But feel free to copy the painting as is. Again, here's a simpler version of the study. Go ahead and check the class guide for reference. Let's start with the pastel pink as a background. Cover half of the background area, add more pink to the mixture and fill in the gaps. Next, I'm covering the ground area with the orange that's already on my palette from our previous project. But as we reach the bottom, let's use the brownish color to complete the foreground. Then mix a muted pink and use it to depict a distant mountain in the background. It's not really too obvious, but this would do. For the foreground texture, let's use orange and pink and drag the brush across the paper lightly for added complexity. Start with orange and then switch to pink later. I am deliberately painting abstract shapes here, but I'm also being mindful where to place them, and I'm missing the reference photo to do that. Next, I want to recreate this color. So I'll mix my three primary colors and add this tree in the middle ground. This has a very simple shape, so just use the side of the brush, drag it downwards, and you have a tree. It doesn't have to be straight, too, okay? I love how this looks. The composition is almost the same. But by using pastel colors and re coloring this study, it makes it extra whimsical. Add some bushes and shadows in the middle ground. And now we can work on the foliage using orange. You can also change how you hold the brush to make random organic marks. Just keep in mind the overall shape of the foliage. Then use the brown color again to paint the trunk. I'm now applying light pressure on my brush and working with the textures. Add more shadows, look at the reference photo to help you decide, and we're done. How do you feel about this one? Are you into landscape, or did you like the Still Life exercise more? 20. Pastel Project 3: Our last reference, morning walk by Sargent again is a little bit more complicated than the previous ones, since it includes a figure now, but I highly encourage you to take this challenge and focus on the color mixing part, okay? You can also opt for a simpler abstracted version. Prepare by sketching the big shapes and dividing the painting area. There's no need for this to be an exact replica, okay? These lines will only help us decide where the colors end or meet, but nothing more than that. We're not even painting the face, so you can relax. Let's start with a dark pink background. And as we move upwards, add more white the mixture to make this soft transition. Use a big flat brush and don't bother too much about the details. Let's do the same on the other side. Now we can see some reflections of the clouds here, so we can use white gouache and paint those shapes. Next, load your brush with pure pink and paint some reflections. Max in yellow to your pink for a vibrant orange and color in these shapes. Again, do the same on the other side. And just like what we did with pink, we will add more yellow and create this transition. Now, as we reach the top, let's add back more pink and fill in the gaps. This way, it's not a big flat shape, and we get to practice more of our color mixing by varying the shades that we use on the background. Now, let's use whatever's on our palette and complete this shape. Moving on to the figure, let's start with a pastel, orange color, something close to flesh. Squint your eyes for you to see the shadows on the dress. And then if needed, we can also switch to a smaller brush and paint the shapes that we see. For the face, just use this orange, add more water if needed. And for the gloves, we'll have to add blue to the mixture and make it into a dark, neutral color. Just a suggestion of the hand will do. I also use the side of the brush and angle it a bit to draw the small shape. We can paint in the hair using the same colour. Now grab a lighter orange for the hair ornament and add blue again to the orange mixture for the color of the cast shadow in her umbrella. Next, use the same pastel skin tone color for some parts of the umbrella and then define the shadows on her dress by adding another layer of that brownish color. So what we're doing here is really testing out our color mixing skills by shifting from one color to another. Next, let's refill the orange. Use the brush to paint suggestions of grasses in the background. Now it's time for some texture in the background. Play with whatever colors are on your palette, hold and drag your brush in different angles, and fill in the background with abstract shapes. Use the reference photo to help you decide which places need additional texture or depth. Like this bottom part where I made it a bit darker by using a pinkish brown mixture. You can also define some features of the face by just focusing on the shadows, but you're very free to skip this step, okay? Final touches, and we're done. Here's our three mini studies. Which one's your favorite? They look so cute and fancy when re colored with pastel. And these projects also gave us so many opportunities to practice our mixing skills. Before you go, I'll see you in the next video, and I'll share some tips on what you can do from here. 21. Before You Go: Great job in completing this class. Did you find your favorite shade? Let's do a quick review. We learned that by mixing any white pigment or even its pastel equivalent, you'll have your basic creamy shade. And then we can adjust the ratio or make it less duller, or even create its muted version. I also share with you alternative colors that you can play with so you wouldn't feel pressured to produce the exact shades that I mixed. To apply what we learned, we also worked on these mini composition studies. You are free to choose whether to share with us the simple version, the more complicated version, or just a photo of the swatches that you did. Don't forget to share your project in the project's gallery, and let's appreciate what our fellow students created. Do that and leave an honest class review and then shoot me an email to claim your free copy of my Pastels eBook. Now that you know the basics of mixing pastel shades, go ahead and try out other pigments and do lots and lots of swatches. I have other color mixing classes, and I hope to see you there. And together, let's make this world a little bit more colorful with our artwork.