Painting a Frosty Tea Rose with Soft Pastel

1. tea rose intro: Have you ever wondered how to portray frost in a painting? That was a question that came in my mind because we've just had our first frost here on Vancouver Island, and it reminded me of a time when I saw frost on a little tea rose and I took a picture. My name's Heather Nelson, and I'm a soft pastel artist. I love to work with soft pastels, both in pencil form, pan pastel form. Lots these little guys here, or also in stick form. Either way, it's like, direct pigment, and I really like that tactile aspect of soft pastels. In this project, we are going to work on starting out right away with our soft pastel. We will form our foundation and create our sketch directly with our soft pastels on the page. I'm going to be using pen pastels, but that is completely optional. You could do everything just with soft pastel sticks. But if you have them, crack them out. Let's use them. So we're going to create that foundation. We're going to create a nice soft background. It's a little out of focus where our flower can be the star of the show. We'll be learning how to use different values to create that form of our flower and the illusion of all of these different layered petals, as well as the frost around the edges and on this little Bud? Is that what that is? Is that a bud? I would love to see what project that you come up with. So please upload it to the project section. And if you'd like, you can even tag me an Instagram, and then I'll share it in my stories. Please give me a follow here on Skillshare so you can find out what other courses I have coming up. And I'd love it if you take a look at some of the courses that I already have. And you can also follow me on my other channels like my Instagram and also on my YouTube channel. If you check out my website, I have a free resource which shows you how to get more painterly in your work. Let's move on to our next video, which is about the materials we'll need. 2. tea rose materials: So the materials that we're going to need for this little project, I'm working in my sketchbook. This is a sketchbook I made myself, and it is 6 " by 8 " tall. And we've already possibly done the class with the mushroom and Skillshare. Now our tea rose. For the optional supplies, I've got some pan pastels here. I've got an assortment of different violets and a golden color and then an assortment of green. But these are optional. I like to use them in the background because they cover really well. But if you don't own these, you're just going to use your soft pastel sticks and you're just going to blend them in the same way that you would do with the pan pastels. As for the sticks that we've got here, I've got an assortment of values of green from dark all the way to quite a light color, but I also have some more grassy a lot of yellowy green kind of colors as well. But use what you've got in your greens. And then I have an assortment of these kind of carameli kind of colors like to the mustard and then coming in with our different yellow colors. And that's going up in value. So I'm gradually going from dark through to, like, saturated yellow and then to a very light, very light colors, right? So we've got quite an assortment of those. You don't need to have as many values. Again, use what you have, but you will appreciate having some sort of golden color unless your rose is completely different color. Now, your hands, they're probably going to get dirty. I like to use some type of wipe for my hands, but, of course, you can just use soap and water. I just find I like the cloth to wipe my hands off. For cleaning off my pastels, I like to have a nice, like, fiber cloth. Like, if we look at this pastel, it's quite dirty. It's going to put colors that we don't want down onto our page. So I give it a quick wipe, and then I'm back to the original pigment. You could use these to clean your hands off too. I used a little bit of tape to tape my painting down. I wasn't super concerned about that with such a small canvas. I did have some soft tools. These were my blending tools. But if you don't have blending tools like this, you can use your finger, a bit of paper towel, even blending stump. Even a pool noodle would work. Paper is the most important thing you're going to use for soft pastels. You want a sanded paper. So that's paper with a little bit of a texture that's going to grip those pigments and hold them. The better quality paper you have, the less powder you're going to have around on the table, and also the more layers you're going to be able to get down onto your painting. My favorite paper by far, is pastel mat. It is expensive, though, so use what you can get, but it is going to make a difference to your painting. So use what you can. I've even used automotive sand paper before. You know, UART is quite a nice sanded paper. So there's papers out there and use what you can find. But definitely try to buy the best paper that you can afford. You can download the reference photo from the Projects and Resources section. 3. tea rose sketch: I just want to dive right in, see where the journey takes us today. I may begin with my pan pastels and just kind of carve out the idea of where this little t rose is going to show up. And so going to be thinking about, there's this angle here of the stem and, yeah, no, I don't want to go too close to the edge. I want to be thinking about that. So sometimes I just kind of like to plan out my strokes and then, visualize what might happen. And this color that I'm putting down now is Pan pastel, but you could use soft pastel if you want, and we're just going to kind of, like, lay in the idea. So it's almost like creating a sketch. I'm going to have other colors on my soft tool. I'm choosing to use the triangular one here, and we're just going to be thinking like, I think some of the yellow is going to be up here. I'm not worried about these other colors because I know that I can go right over top of them. I want to step down with that T rose, probably have it come in this section here at this stage, this could be all that matters to me is, we're going to have T rose in about here. Maybe I do want it to have a little bit more length because I like how it's tall. I might say that it comes in. I'm just mapping it out. That's going to be about there. Then I might bring in some green now and just say, there's going to be this little aspect here. It's going to have a little line. Then there's going to be the base of that flower. This is me sketching, but sketching in my own. That came off. Actually, I'm just going to flip that. Put a little green on there, and just say it comes to about there. That's me saying this is where the T rose is going to live in this picture. 4. tea rose background1: Now I can come in with some of the background elements. I'm using my squarish one this time. Again, I'm still going to be using a little bit of pan pastel, and I'm going to just bring it in there. Grab a little bit of the lighter gray. And now we can even start thinking about carving out a little bit of our negative spaces even. I'm gonna think about where would that flower actually be. And I'm just gonna rub that around on my paper. It's particularly powdery today. It makes me wonder, L, I've got something crusty on the backside of my applicator. Who knows what I was doing with it? But anyway, colors aren't blending in as well as they normally would, but we're just gonna go with it. Seems like I'm getting that crustiness off by working it into the page. So that's right. I'm okay with whatever that is. It's like some sort of blue or something, but, it works for me. I'm not going to have that one leaf coming across there. I'm not very interested in that one, so I'm just blending. We've got some grays and some blues. Might even bring in a little bit of a purply flavor, and I can mix that in with my lighter gray. Get that, like, purply gray. And purple, of course, it's going to be a nice complimentary color with our gray and our sorry, purple will be a nice complimentary color with the yellow. And at first, when you're painting like this, I just want you to enjoy the joy of the painting like this. Like, you might think, Oh, but it looks kind of weird. Yeah, that's okay. It's all part of the process. Putting a little purply up there. Have fun painting that in. Using like circular strokes. Now, if I wasn't using pan pastel, would actually be doing something really similar with my soft pastel, but I would just be blending it in with my blending tool, I'd put the color on, and then I would just blend it in with my tool. And if I didn't have a tool, I would use whatever I did have. I might use my fingers, that kind of thing. And because I had all these little crusties on here, I don't know. I must have had some sort of underpainting happening in one of my last projects. You can see more powder on the page than there normally would be. I'm alright with whatever this blue crusty stuff is, but we might just try to blend it into the page. You can look for where things are lighter in your reference photo. But I do like the purple in there, so I'm gonna rocket that around in there, too. And I might play more and more with that over time. Like, I like how that gray and that purples working together. I'm even going to add in a little bit of that greeny blue. I think you took this picture in the yard. I'm probably going to skip that stem that comes in through there. I just don't care for it. And I want to keep this simple. I kind of grabbing different greens. I think that's quite a dark teal. I have to get out the dust buster after this one. It's not usually this dusty with the uh Yeah, it's not usually quite this dusty with the pan pastel, but this is what we got going on today. There's even a little bit of a glow backck here, the yellowy glow. I'm going to bring that in cause why not? See how it works later. Bring in some stronger, more green greens. Some of the other things in this background, hard to say whether I'm going to use them or not. We'll see. But for now, this is probably gonna be how my background looks. Bringing a little bit more of that. Lighter gray kind of blending that out with the purple. Okay, so that's the basics of our background, but that doesn't mean we're not gonna put more background in. 5. tea rose background2: I've added a soft pastel here that's a little bit of grayish purply color, and I'm just going to bring this into the areas that I want a little bit lighter. One thing about soft pastel is it's going to go down stronger than your pan pastel, and it's going to have more impact. So you can throw it in there, and then you can still use your applicator to blend it in. So that's how I would do the background if I wasn't using pan pastel. And I don't want you to feel like you have to have pan pastel to have success with this 'cause you really don't and just gently making my circles and just kind of blending the edges here. You can still leave the idea that there might be kind of a stock in the background here. But I'm not planning on putting one in. Yeah, I just like how that brightened to lighten things up a little bit. Might not want it lighter and brighter everywhere. So I'm going to use this a little bit lighter here. And then I might even bring in some of the darker green and even maybe a little well, no, we won't bring that in. We're just gonna use this one. Now, if I was to blend this in with my finger, the colors would stay a little bit stronger. When I use the soft tool, it kind of lifts some of the color up. Now making that transition, and it's got a little bit more purple to it. It's just grabbing a little more purple to make that transition. Now, you will find you do not regret time spent working on your background. At the time that you do it, it'll often feel a little bit, when am I ever going to get to the good stuff. But actually, it will make your whole picture look better if you concentrate a little bit on it now, pays off. Transition there. Be a little lighter transition in here. Okay, so that's where I'm going to have my background at this level. 6. tea rose mid ground 3: Then we have more of our midground, and I am going to put in a little bit of our midground. I'm going to bring in a little bit of our grassy green in a stem. I can also think about that color on my actual stem of my rose. Don't worry, we're going to be blending this out a little bit. It's not going to be quite as sharp as this and a little bit of my darker green we'll be bringing that in on the bottom of our row. So I'm just taking a little edge of my color, carving out a little half circle here and I'm going to drag it down a little bit down my stem. And then when I bring in my blending tool, I'm going to be in careful. I don't want to lose the dark there and just drag it down. We're going to blend in this background a little. And I do want this to be a little bit fogged out. But I can even bring in a little bit lighter colour. Ooh, that one's a little powdery. Again, we're just going to blend it in, so it's not going to be so strong. Can kind of use all of it there. I'm just dotting this around. But I'm going to blend that, too. So people won't be able to tell what is happening back there? They just see things in the same way that you see things in the photo. And I'm using a really light pressure here as I'm doing this. Just kind of gently blending it in. So, yeah, people aren't sure. What are they seeing here? Who knows? But they'll assume you've got a rose with other things in the background. Other plants, maybe, maybe even other roses. Could get a little stronger in this dark section. I want a little contrast there. I might even bring my finger into blend because I kind of like the effect that I get a little bit better. I like that little bit sort of stronger color. So now we kind of use the negative space from that dark color, sort of blend that in. It's funny, too, because I was thinking, Oh, I'm not gonna really concentrate on the background. Just kind of keep it really quick class. And I couldn't help myself. So we're just gonna be blending in those greens. So you know something's back there, but you don't know what. And this, too. Again, I kind of like that, like, moodiness that it gives to my background. So I'm gonna embrace that. Now, there's a little bit of light here. And some of this is to do with the stem. So here's like kind of a light I don't know, it's a little bit of a light teal. Just put it on the edge where some of this light is, and then also in the back. And so I'm just using the edge of my pastel. Just go to dot that in. I don't want that one blurred as much. It's even a little bit of, like, reddish, pinky kind of things. And I'm going to dot those around too. And by carrying that color around two, it's going to make more sense when I stick it in my flour. 7. tea rose greenery 4: So I'm going to take my dark green, now this to I won't be blending, I'm going to just use it in that little half circle for underneath the bud area and a little bit at the base of my rose as well. You can always cover up anything that's dark so we don't have to worry. And I'm going to bring it in. I brought it in kind of like on an edge. For that part of the rose there. C even use this color a little bit up here for this piece and a little bit there. Here I'm just drawing with it. I'm almost acting like it's a pencil. But say for this back piece here, now I can use my more minty teal color and draw it on top of that. That's what's giving it that dimension a little. We have it a little bit in here too. And you can carry it a little further if you want. So we should probably do something like that out here, too. So we can see this piece here, so I'm using the edge and carving it like so. And then I can bring in a little bit of my other colors. So I have a little bit of orange kind of color on the top of whatever. I don't know what you call those. Sort of stem like things, and I'm getting a brighter color, too. I'm just going to keep layering. Onto there. And then I can bring in my lighter mintier color, and I can blend over top. I'm using it in little circles to just blend right over top. So I'm taking into account that I had other colors underneath, but I knew I would be able to blend it with this minty color. And then when you want a sharper line, just use a little bit more pressure. Like so. And then I can go sharper line again, you know, underneath here, too, if I want to. I kind of like how that works, and I can use that on its edge for hers. Well, it's good. And we can use maybe that grassier green and just really light. I'm kind of scumbling it, so that means that I'm not fully drawing. I'm kind of, like, letting it make contact sometimes, but not all the time. And I actually want a little bit of a yellowy color in there, too. So I'm going to grab my yellow terry ludwig and gently add that. And I might even end up blending that out a little bit. We'll see what happens there. I'm gonna see if I can scribe across the back. And so that was kind of interesting. I'm gonna grab my little soft tool that's like a triangle. It's got a lot of color on it, so it's kind of got to be careful here how this works. Just really gently blending that part in the back there on that rose. And I can use that a little bit here if I want to as well. I got to be kind of careful there. I want this to be quite dark under here. Like, I'm looking for quite a lot of contrast. So I'm just going to draw that in. And so that darkness against the light, that's what gives you that contrast. That's where you want to really see dark and light, which will give you something to play with a little bit. Kind of wanted it dark there, too. And there's even a little bit of, like, throw that reddish terracotta color there. And if you get too strong with it, well, don't worry about it. You can always take another color over top of it later, or you can blend it back in. Actually, that worked. I put this as my lighter color, and I'm kind of, like, rolling it on almost for my little bits of frost. That's kind of a cool effect that we're getting. And we might use that a little bit here. Ooh, got to have a steady hand for that one. But I like this, like mintier color for in the back. And so I'm drawing that on. Like so. There's still a little bit of reddish colors back in here, too. Alright, it didn't go on in the right spot, but that's okay. You can just kind of blend that out. Never worry. We need a little bit lighter color there. And again, that'll bring us our contrast. But you might have to very carefully rub it in. There we go. 8. tea rose flower part 1 - 5: Now I'm going to take that darker reddish color, and it's going to come in around the back here. And I'm not concerned about the fact that it's quite dark right now and it's darker than what I really want to have in there because I'm laying in a foundation right now. So I'm bringing in, and I'm like, sweeping it up. For this area of the rose that I'm going to want to have darker later. So kind of carving out those areas wherever you see something darker. And so, like this rose has these moments here where this is going up, and then you can see, where this, fold is. So I'm going to come down that fold, just like drawing with the edge. Because I'm gonna be blending over top of that. I can use that in other areas, too. Like, I can look for other spots where there's a bit of a fold, and I can add a little bit of this terracotta kind of color to those spots. And we can always put lighter color over. But as we add these areas, they're going to be like our contrast folding petal areas, which you can kind of already start to see coming in, but we'll be putting things over top of this. And actually, this part over here is more of a green. So I'm going to grab green color, but do the same kind of thing. So I'm going to carry it up, really light pressure. And even a little bit through the back here, I think it has to do with reflections, just gently dragging that up. And you might think, but, Heather, that's so crazy. And then here, we're going to have this come through. I'm just bringing a little bit brighter color, greenier, and then I'm going to bring my like, minty teal and just blend that all in. And I do think I'm going to need to add a little bit of the terracotta color. To make sense of it, as well. Or maybe even this is like a little terracotti color, too, but it's like a lighter one. And maybe even a little purple. Just put a little purple on here. And we can always sharpen that up later. So don't be concerned about that right now. It's these little details that are going to matter later. So I'm kind of blending that in a little bit. Time to pick a bolder yellow. So this yellow is quite a fun one, and I want to use it sparingly. I'm going to glaze it over top of this terracotta color here really lightly because I want some of that dark stuff to show through. And just dragging it up where the main part of that, rose is. And then we can use a little bit of it sparingly on the outside as well, dragging it up again. And same thing over here, but really gently, like the gentlest of pressures. And then you can decide whether you want to blend a little bit of that. So I'm just going to do that with a finger, and I'm just dragging it upwards. So I'm getting in there, just kind of dragging that up 'cause this is, like, my foundation, right? I'm going to want some of this texture, so I don't want to blend in all of it. So I'm just now I might bring in, like, a lighter. This is more like a very bold butter. And I'm going to use it on the edge, as if I'm drawing. And that's going to be that edge there. We're going to need a little bit of lighter color, too, there. And now I'm making a little bit of circly lines, sort of blending it into the back, grabbing a lighter color still, again using just the edge and drawing again. Like so. And then I can put that on its edge and kind of make that, like, fold area there. And it does kind of fold over on itself, but it does that with a darker color. So I'm taking this, like, really light, I don't know, it's a bit of a mustardy color, putting that underneath. And I might even drag that a little bit under this petal and under where that fold was. I need a little bit of that inside here, too. Lighter buttery kind of colors. This is like a yellow. And I'm gonna come in and, like, kind of pull in. But again, not so much that I cover over the color that I put underneath because I want that color there. I put it there for a reason. I'm going to kind of wiggle it 'cause it is wiggled. I'm going to blend it a little bit with my finger here. It's a little bit out of focus. Some colors blend really easily and some don't. I put this lighter color over on this edge to kind of indicate the highlight here, and I'm making, like, little circles kind of over the lip there. And I might draw a little bit with this too on that edge. And I think I could use the same one, actually to draw this edge. But it's not as light, so I do need to come in with my more yellowy kind of color. I'm going to mix and blend because I don't have all the colors here that I want, I can tell. I'm going to bring that little bit of a buttery in there just 'cause it's interesting. And I'm going to use that one for here. Again, just kind of dragging down. I almost need, like, a peachy color. You can see that sometimes as you're getting a little bit deeper into the project. If you see areas that are a little bit lighter, you just pop those into the folds. That also might be where more of my frost is. So I'm just I'm making, like, a twisty line. We're probably gonna need some extra colors for those frosty bits, though. And I'm just gonna wiggle it around here a little bit, just to kind of give myself an indication of where it is. Like, I will probably be making changes, but this kind of gives me a sense of it. Bringing in more of a banana e color again. Dragging upwards. I kind of want that back there, too. And a really gentle pressure, putting it in there. And yeah, I can see that I want something that's, like, peachy, actually. Just go to take this and just drag it down. Be really careful when you're blending. You don't want to lose all the dark bits that you added. 9. Tea rose flower part 2 - 6: I think this is the pinky peach that I was kind of going for, and I want to just sort of glaze it in amongst the yellow a little bit, especially in these areas that are a little bit lighter. I think it's a good addition. Could even use it a little bit on this edge. And I'm gonna play with it a little bit in this frost section here, along with some yellow. Let's get some little circles in there. I know it doesn't look quite like frost yet, but we still have a ways to go here. I'm getting some interesting texture sounds. A little pinky here, too. And then starting to use a little bit of pink on some of these edges here. Maybe that needs to be a little bit more of a yellowy kind of cream. And then I see that I will definitely need a little bit of my butter yellow, but so gentle. Don't go too crazy I like that dark shadow coming through there as well. When you want to keep the Oops. When you want to keep those in there, you just don't want to put so much layer over top that you're scrubbing it out. I don't know if you can hear my kitty snoring. And we can throw these along these folds and lips and edges, 'cause this is that, like, light color. And I want a little more like a bright yellow in the back here. So now I can kind of throw I don't know, wherever I think little fold or a little edge is. You start putting some of the yellow back in there, but I still want to be able to see my shadows as well. Otherwise, I'll lose everything that I created. So that's not what I want. And then I can start bringing in my lighter highlight colors, kind of glaze across the top, and I can even say make that some of my frost, which means I'm kind of, like, tweaking and rolling. My color over the top, I think we'll get an even lighter color to do that with as well. What you want to be able to do is see that you have these little folds in here. I know, just wiggling those in. And, of course, I can add. Like, if I come out further 'cause I wanted to, I can add a little bit more yellow to make some sense of that. You can even add a little green in there. Oops. Okay, that one was not the best choice. Ah, but luckily with pastel, if you make a mistake, you just go over top of it. It doesn't matter. I kind of want a deeper deeper red vibe going on in there, too. Then I brought in another lighter color for the edge of that, whatever this is. It's kind of the casing, I guess. And we do need some yellow for this back part because this is still a petal. But there's also some mustard colors back there, so I'm going to mix those in too. Kind of throwing colors around to get the idea of those little cinnamon folds in there. And then you can come back over top again with yellows. Always do that. But then sort of count on your dark colors in behind. Even putting this green back here to be my shadow, but I'll just have to blend it in a little bit. Actually, maybe I'll just blend it in with a little bit of a pastel. So really gentle glaze over top, and then that'll blend it in more organically than you can do with your hand, you know? Can add a little hand later. Gray green in the back here. I'm going to just throw that in. Maybe a little purple there, too, sort of get that crispier edge. You can always play in the background still, but just be really careful as you're coming up to the edge of your flower. I just wanted that yellow in there. I wanted it to be a little more yelloi. Now, we do need I think, anyway, I think we need a little bit more of that frosty color. I want that, like, fold over there. I'm gonna create this shadow behind the fold. It's a little bit of the green. Okay 10. Tea rose final 7: To blend this in a little bit more. I'm about to put some frost on it, and that might change how it looks. So this is quite a light gray unison. It's even got some shards which I like. I'm going to start in the background, see if I can get this color to go on and I'm wiggling it. Is the wiggles. I think part of the key to this frost is going to be having a little bit of darkness in underneath so that you can see the difference. Frost is harder than I anticipated. Whoops. Yeah, and if you do get it somewhere you didn't want it, if you wiggle it in somewhere, and you're like, I didn't want that over there. Well, you can always color over top of it. Don't worry about that. And a little bit under here and over here. And I'm going to wiggle it on my little narrow piece and across that back piece. This one, I'm going to, like, dull down a little bit. I think I went a little bit high here, so I'm going to bring in a little bit of yellow. I'm going to step back, take a good look. Oh, I see that I need a little bit of a glow back here. And I'm gonna put that down. Like so. And then also some boring green. Well, it's a bit of an olive green, 'cause I don't want quite that saturated. Not so sure that roses do exactly what I've got. I want this as a little bit more of an angle here. I'm going to let this come down a little bit more, that edge is going to be more down here. You can do this. After you look at something, feel free to make some changes to it, and it's coming a little more down, it goes up down. I'm just going to scridge this in a little bit here. Scrige technical term. And I like like that shadow coming in back there. But I just want to change a little bit, and I don't want this quite so dark. Find my eye just goes to that, and then I don't notice anything else. It's creating too much of a focal point, so to speak. Same with, like, maybe this one here. I just kind of want it wrapping around differently. So study your reference picture and make sure that it actually looks like a rose. And then this goes up a little bit of an angle, too, because I think these things kind of like they're not perfectly like a cinnamon bun, you know? They have a little bit of a spiral to them, but not quite cinnamon bun, spiral. Like, I want this petal to kind of go up and folded, and then there to be another one in the background. Then I can add a little bit more of the frost idea to the background and to this one here. I'm just going to add a little more purple and gray to the background. You can always do, like, whatever whatever finishing touches you want. I kind of want to make it seem like there's a little something back there, but they're not sure what it is. With the folds of a rose and how a rose looks. Maybe. I don't tend to grow roses because deer eat them here. Okay, there does come a time. I think you all know by now, if you've taken enough classes with me that I can get a little bit overworki. We don't want to overwork this whole project. So we're wiggling a little bit of this in a little dark speckling in there. That's to make it look more like frost. I think it kind of works. Really gently. Okay, be a little bit more back here for a little bit of a dark shadow. And, no, I'm not going to leave it like that. I was just going to glaze over it. I just want it a little bit darker next to that. Petal. 'Cause remember, contrast is everything. And then we sign. 11. Tea rose outro: Thank you so much for attending this class. I really hope you enjoyed it and that you had fun creating these different layers and forms with this tea rose. Hopefully, you were able to get that illusion of Frost, as well. I know it was challenging. I would love it if you would follow me here on Skillshare, and you can also follow me on my other channels like my Instagram and also on my YouTube channel. Is there anything we're missing? You shouldn't really be doing that in the video.