Soft Pastels - Beginner Tips & Techniques Workshop | Lee-Ann Lukacs | Skillshare
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Soft Pastels - Beginner Tips & Techniques Workshop

teacher avatar Lee-Ann Lukacs, Fine Artist

Watch this class and thousands more

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Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      01 Intro to soft pastels

      1:17

    • 2.

      02 about soft pastels

      2:56

    • 3.

      03 supplies for soft pastels

      2:00

    • 4.

      04 strokes with soft pastels

      4:25

    • 5.

      05 blending soft pastels

      4:26

    • 6.

      06 techniques with soft pastels

      6:03

    • 7.

      07 soft pastel tips

      3:40

    • 8.

      08 final thoughts from soft pastels

      1:26

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About This Class

In this hands-on workshop you will be introduced to this popular, versatile and vibrant medium with artist and art instructor Lee-Ann Lukacs. Discover what soft pastels are, and tips on creating and storing your artwork.

Easily learn strokes, blending and techniques in this step by step workshop to get you on your way to creating and enjoying your own pastel creations. All you will need is a beginner set of soft pastels, some paper, and a few items from around the house, and you’re ready to go. 

Have some fun, and get your creativity flowing!

Meet Your Teacher

Teacher Profile Image

Lee-Ann Lukacs

Fine Artist

Teacher

Lee-Ann Lukacs is an artist and art instructor who loves to share the joy of creative expression with people of all ages. Her focus is on sharing her expertise with others and inspiring them to enjoy developing their individual style and creative interests in a fun and relaxed atmosphere.

She enjoys all fine art mediums, currently focusing on pastels, gouache and drawing, and is always in the pursuit of discovering new artistic methods to explore along with her students!

See full profile

Level: Beginner

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Transcripts

1. 01 Intro to soft pastels: I love to introduce people to new fine art mediums and share what I've learned in relaxed and fun atmosphere. Tell others discover and enjoy new tools and methods to express their own individual creativity. Welcome to my soft pastels Tips and techniques Workshop for Beginners Class I'm Yan Lu Catch an artist in recreational art Instructor. All you'll need is some paper, a beginner said of soft pastels and a few items from around the house, and you're ready to go. This versatile, vibrant and easy to use creative tool is one of my favorite art meetings past. Those are easy to use. You can take them with you anywhere. There are so many different things you can do with them in this hands on workshop, I'll walk you through a number of techniques to help you quickly develop new skills with Soft Best does that you can begin using right away to create your own compositions. Regardless of your experience, I'll discuss what soft pastels are and a bit of background on them in the next video 2. 02 about soft pastels: what are soft pastels. Soft pastels often referred to his chalk pastels due to their resemblance to chalk, are pure dry pigment powder that has barely held together with a very light gum is a binder or a glutinous. Soft pastels are not. Chuck Chalk is made of plaster tinted with die, which does not adhere well and fades quickly. Pastels air almost pure pigment and are the closest fine art medium to pure pigment pigments, air colored powders made from ground minerals or from chemical compounds that are used for manufacturing paint. For this reason, creating artwork with pastels is referred to his painting rather than drawing, even though the process of creating with them is very much drawing in nature. History of soft pastels, pastels, air, The earliest form of painting medium. There have been many caves found showing drawings made with pure pigment, giving glimpses into prehistoric life. Manufacturer of pastels originated in the 15th century. In the past, all medium was mentioned by Leonardo da Vinci. Why I love soft pastels. The purity of the pigment of soft pastels create the vibrant and intense colors that many artists enjoy using one of the reasons that this medium is one of the most popular among artists of all skill levels. They come in a wide range of colors that can also be blended together. The fact that there is basically nothing between the pigment and the paper gives pastel paintings their luminosity, pastels, air easily transportable and her perfect for working with outside or whatever location suits you. With only a set of pastels and some paper, you can easily create impactful compositions without waiting for drying time as you would with other forms of painting. I also enjoyed drawing in pastels at a unique dimension to the drawing process, while allowing me to create artworks with the versatility and immediacy that drawing offers . The option of immediate results is appealing to me, as I often prefer to create art with an Impressionist approach, expressing the feeling that something gives me at that moment. I hope that as you try out pastels with me in this hands on workshop that you will enjoy them as I and many others do, and be inspired to create more with Um, let's take a look at everything we'll need to get started in the next video 3. 03 supplies for soft pastels: in this video, we'll be looking at the supplies will be using in the upcoming hands on videos. First thing you'll need is printouts of the strokes blending and techniques pages to do your work on. You can find them under the your Projects section on the website just below the videos in this class to download them to print. You'll also need a set of basic soft pastels. You can find them at any art supply store if you don't already have some. I have found quite a few varieties of inexpensive choices at all of the local arts suppliers. You'll also need a few pieces of blank copy paper and some black paper. I'll be using common construction paper, which I find works great with pastels. Next, you'll want to have a damp cloth or paper towel on hand. My personal favorite cloth is a maker fiber cloth. It is amazing at lifting off pastel dust from your hands. Another great alternative to these baby wipes. If you have those handy, we'll be using these to keep her hands clean while we work with the different colors of pastels as they can produce some dust as there used You may also like to have a waste basket handy to tap excess dust into as you work. We'll also need tissues, cotton swabs and a paintbrush. A firm brush with soft bristles is best if you have one and a cup of water for your work place, you'll want to be in an area that will allow for a few colorful dust particles that are produced while working with the pastels. I like to use a placemat like this one or a large piece of paper beneath where I'm working . That's all we'll need, So let's get started. 4. 04 strokes with soft pastels: first worksheet we're gonna work on is our strokes there the basic elements to what we are working with when we're working with pastels. So what we want to do is pick a color you like of pastel and pick an area to work in. The first stroke we're going to do is called light strokes, and we're barely going to touch the page. The idea is to just put the passed out on the page and just barely touch it and you'll see as you work that the pigment is is really visible, even though you're barely touching the page. I like to use this stroke to create some texture or to give some finishing touches in my work. Now that we tried some lane strokes, we're gonna try heavy strokes so we can take a color the same or different color, and we'll pick another workspace, and we'll just apply firm pressure as we work and you'll see that the color is very solid. When you do this and also produces a lot of dust, This trope brings out the full color intensity. I have really liked to use it in my work. I'm gonna remove that extra dust off of my fingers before I use more. And I'm just going to take my page and tap it into the garbage to clear the extra dust away . Thank stroke We're going to do is called a side stroke. So we're gonna take a pastel, We're gonna lay it on its side, and this is an excellent way to fill in a lot of colors. Just slide it around on the side and you get a nice, full flat color. I'll clear the dust away so you could take a look here. Thats stroke is really nice when you want to create a large area of flat color and it's quick and easy to fill it in. The next stroke that we're gonna do is called side edge lines. So we're gonna use the site of the pastel. But we're also gonna prop it up on one of its corner inches and just slide it along and you'll see this makes nice, sharp lines. Nice for sharp edges on things or even an abstract Look, I think so. For our last strokes exercise, we're going to do some layering. I'm gonna pick a light blue, a white and a dark blue and I'll show you that we can do. We can layer dark and then light overtop. And then I quite often like to use weight as a highlight or even to kind of blend the colors that I've done to create a little interest to go ahead and try a few colors layering them, See how you like it. That's all for strokes. Next will work on blending. 5. 05 blending soft pastels: next, we're gonna work on some blending exercises. This is one of my favorite things to do with soft pastels is something that is unique to them. That is really beautiful effects. So we're going to try five different things to blend first is we're going to just use our finger. We're gonna take some pastel and we're gonna lay down some color Miss Fill in area like this, and I'm just using the side stroke that we did in the first video. Then we're gonna take our finger and just blend the color in, and you get a really nice, smooth, even color This week. Your finger presses in the color really nicely, and I'm gonna use my cloth and that's finger blending. Next, we're going to use a tissue to blend. This is nice. If you don't really like to get the pigment all over your fingers when you're blending So I will take another color no laid down in another area like this. And then I'll just take the tissue and blended in and you'll see it has a slightly different effect. I think the finger presses the color into the page more, and there's quite a bit that's lifted into the fibers of the, um, the tissue that you used. So there's a slight difference, but you can weigh out what you like. The third tool we're going to use for blending is a cotton swab. This is a nice for two reasons, and I'll show you how. What we're gonna do is we're gonna take part of a circle here and we're gonna put some pastel down and then we're gonna blend and you'll see that the cotton swab blends smaller areas so you don't necessarily have to blend an entire area. Or if you just want a smaller area to blend at a time, you can do that. What also happens when you use this is that the pigment is lifted onto the cotton swab and you can use it as a drawing tool. So go ahead and try drawing out a little bit and blending with this and see how you like it . Our fourth tool is a paintbrush. I'll show you how well, use it. First I'll lay down some color, like so we can even take a couple colors if we like, and then just take the pressure and blended over the area. You'll see that as you blend with the paintbrush that the texture of the drawing that do you did underneath is still intact. It kind of sweeps up the pigment I've noticed. And those paintbrush in the last one is a web came brush. So we're just gonna wet paintbrush and then we'll lay down some color e think so And we're gonna use a paintbrush which blends the pigment a little differently. Then the dry ways of blending. It reminds me a lot of watercolor painting. This is a nice effect. If you like that type of look, too. And that's all of our blending techniques. We're going to move on to some specific soft pastel techniques in her next video. 6. 06 techniques with soft pastels: in our last hands on video, we're going to do some specific soft pastel techniques. He's a really nice to create some texture or to give a different look to your piece. The first thing we're gonna do is called feathering. What we want to do is pick up a couple of colors we like. Feathering is basically making a stroke that looks a lot like a feather. See, just take your pastel and you have pull it upward like so. This is a nice technique toe layer as well. And the more that I lay the pastel on its side, the wider the feathering stroke wicket you can layer them. I think that and that is feathering. Our second stroke is called hatching. This is used in a lot of different um, art methods, but we're going to use it in our pastels today. In this way, hatching is basically making a number of lines, but all lay down together like so it's used for texture, that sort of thing. You can use different colors as well. You can layer all of the's Stephanie's, and that's hatching. Now that we've done some hatching, we're going to do some cross hatching. Cross hatching is basically hatching and then crossing over This is a nice one. Tes weight on as well. You can see how white lends your colors with the strokes. Our fourth technique, IHS masking. What we're gonna do is we're gonna take a piece of copy paper and we're just gonna cover part of one of our circles. And then we're gonna take off Estelle's make a few strokes, and the area that you masked off is left weight and you get the sheep of the line of what you're using to mask with. In this case, it was just the paper. So we have a nice straight line, you can also put it back and you can blend with this as well. And that's masking. Our last technique is called stippling. I'm gonna take a few colors here, and what stippling is is just basically hitting the paper and making tiny marks like this. You can actually make an entire composition out of this. We can use it for texture, and you could make the you could make the marks either very pointed or you can pull it a bit and create small lines. The strokes really nice. If you'd like to use Ah Impressionist type of approach to your work too. So that's all for the soft pastel techniques work page. Next, we're gonna pull out a piece of black pepper. We're gonna experiment with some colors on the black paper just to see the difference. Because we've been working on white paper this whole time. Really? Light and bright, vibrant colors show really well on black paper. For example, yellow and white. I like red as well. You can layer different effects. You'll see the colors show up differently on black paper. Sometimes you might like to use this. That's all for techniques and all. Share some tips in the next video with you. 7. 07 soft pastel tips: I'd like to take some time in this video to share some tips about working with pastels. First thing we'll talk about his paper. The paper you used to work on will have its own qualities that will affect the appearance of your artwork, The type we used to try out our strokes. Blending and techniques in the previous videos has a smooth surface. Many pastel compositions are created on papers with more texture to grab onto The pigment. Pastel paper like this comes in pads with a variety of colors that are great to use. Pastels on this darker color creates a warm based background that can become part of your image if you like light strokes or choose to leave portions of the paper visible for colored paper. I love to use construction paper, especially when I'm experimenting. The black paper that we used in our techniques videos one of my favorites because it has an amazing way of displaying the intensity of the vibrant pastel colors, especially yellows, oranges and reds, and the contrast of the white pastel is very appealing and effective. Construction paper is great to experiment on, but can fade over time so that is something to keep into consideration when using it. Soft pastels of painting medium That never dries. Since it doesn't form its own protective outer layer, it's always susceptible to becoming alternative touched. There are a couple of ways to protect your pastel artwork, the one I use most, displacing a piece of paper over my finished work. I prefer to use tracing paper because its spin and I can see what images protecting. Another way to protect your artwork is to use a fixative. There are commercial fix. It lives on the market. But one simple way to create a coating over your work is to use hair spray. When you use US free fixative, you'll want to first test it on a scrap piece of paper to ensure it is spraying evenly First. Also, it's best to use it once you feel your piece is finished, as it will affect how any additional strokes adhere to your picture once it's frayed. One note to be aware of when using fixative is that they will dull and dark in your pastel artwork. For that reason, I usually use tracing paper as my method of protection when displaying pastel artwork glass frames, or best as the glass creates a layer of protection to your work. When you're working with soft pastels is, you touch them. Some of the pigment can easily be transferred from one pastel to another. One very effective way to remove the unwanted excess dust that transfers from one pastel to another is to take a plastic container with a lid and place a course green like race or cornmeal into. Then put your pastels into the container and gently agitated, and they'll be clean in no time. I hope that you'll find these tips helpful as you continue to use pastels and we'll move on to the next video to bring our class to conclusion. 8. 08 final thoughts from soft pastels: thank you so much for joining me in my soft pastels workshop. I appreciate the opportunity to introduce you to some things I've learned about pastels and how to use them. And I hope that you are encouraged to explore them more on your own and create your own artistic expressions that you can enjoy and share with others. You have a unique creative expression that no one else has. I hope this has inspired you and that you'll share your pastel artwork with your friends and loved ones and please upload your creations to the Project gallery. I especially would love to see what you've done. It's always so fun to see whatever you in creates with their style and imagination. I've put some of my pieces in the gallery for you to see is well, if you've enjoyed this class and benefited from it, please also take moment to give it a thumbs up and share your feet back. This also helps others find it too. So thank you once again for taking the time to explore soft customs with me. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments you'd like me to respond to, and you can also follow me here on skill share. Happy painting