Soft Pastels for Beginners | Easy Drawing Tutorials & Techniques

1. Intro to Soft Pastels for Beginners: Hey there. I'm Kate Amido, and this is my new class soft pastels for beginners. In this class, I will tell you everything you need to know to create your first pastel painted. And I will show you the very final project. A fun thing to do that we will be doing together. - I am a wildlife are test, and I paint landscapes and Seascapes as well. You can find my work online and check out other tutorial videos that I have on YouTube, another country on as well. I hope you will find this glass very enjoyable. And I can't wait to see you in the first lesson. 2. Lesson 1: Art Materials: Hey, guys, welcome to the first lesson. So before I start talking about any brands or anything that you should be buying for getting you started with Soft Best tells. I wanted to talk about the differences between the pastels and especially how you should choose them. The first thing I want to show you are three kinds of pastels. So for myself, when I started working in pastel, I divided pastels into hard, semi hard and soft varieties. So I'll show you the difference now between all these three different bass tells they are all from different brands, and I will explain what is so different and why you need all three of them in your work. So 1st 1 I will be taking is this half a stick. I think it's even 1/3 1 3rd of the stick off Joaquin or pastels, and this is how it looks full. I have a box here. This is a set of 24 and these are very nice pastels. So I will show you how this differs from the softer varieties. First of all, the sticks they come in this kind of square shapes wreck a rectangular shapes and they have these edges that you can use to create center lines. So on the paper can put that down the paper and you can see that it blends out smoothly. But it doesn't deposit as much off pastel on the paper as the softer varieties. Well, now so and you can create thin marks with it. Also with the sticks, you break them and you have something to create those fine edges. This is the first type of the best. Also the hard ones, semi hard, for example, Rembrandts. So this is a Rembrandt that I used a lot with stumbling. You can see here, and it's a semi hard pastel. So even though that all of these are soft pastels, they still vary in hardness, so you can see this one when you try both of these types together on the paper, every brand has its own hardness and even different colors of pastels. They have their own hardness is to them. So it's just something that you get used to when you're working with this wonderful medium . With these still, you can create thin lines, so they are hard enough to create thin lines. But you can see the edge wears off a lot faster than the such here. So with soft Best tells with these two, you fill in the tooth of the paper a lot sooner than with the hard ones. So that's one big difference there. And you can see now that I picked up this pastel, my fingers got immediately covered with the pigment. And whereas if I take this one in my hands, nothing happens almost and also with Rembrandt's. I want to tell you one thing that if you do want to buy Rembrandt's because Rembrandts they were my first set of pastels. They have a kind of a coating on them, so sometimes it's not very easy to put a layer of pastel on the paper. So you have to rub this coating against another sheet of paper or even some fine sandpaper to take the coating off, and the pastel is going to be applied on the paper a lot easier. But I'm just going ahead of myself in talking about brands here. Let's pass on to the softer variety, so this is the softest when I got this is Shrinky. So of course, there are the pastels that are in between Rembrandt and Shrinky and these pastels, for example, Windsor and Newton. They are kind of semi hard, but they are softer than Rembrandts. And I'm not gonna go in old those details. It's of course, for the very beginners, and I don't want to over well overwhelm you. But I want to show you the difference between these three. So this is a very soft pastel tosh minke, and you can see how different it looks. So the colors, they are a bit different. But this with one passing over the paper, you can see how but to read this fields. And with this it's a lot more difficult to create those fine details. So these are the three varieties that I am using in my work, and I have different pastel brand for the brands of hard, semi hard and very soft pastels. I would suggest you get coke indoors as I've shown you these for the heart pastels. If you decide you want to work with them because I suggest you get not only one set of pastel. If you really like the medium, you will be doing more and more and more pastels like I do. Um, so basically, these are that self pastels, but they come in square shape, so these will be the hard ones. And then there is another set of the same twice on door. I hope I pronounced that right. But self pastels, which is this? This is the very soft variety. So they will be more on this one. There will be very similar to shrinky, so these are very soft. So these are very, very cheap and very good quality artist grade materials. So cocaine, yours. You can also get, um for the hard ones. You can also get contact crowns. They come also in squares like this, and they are really good as well. For the semi hard you can get away with using just this past hour and not using any of the hard or very soft pastel. This is a Rembrandt and you can buy a set. I bought a set of 120 different colors and it was my starter set, which was very good, because with pastel mixing colors gets a bit more difficult than with paint. So you kind of mix on the paper, so the more colors you have to choose from, the better it is. So Rembrandts and I would suggest the Coke ignores for both of these. If you would like to get all three different varieties. If not, just from brands will be fine or even Kouchner's will be fine. I know that cocking ours. I don't have them but cocking ours they do also this kind of semi hard variety In 72 colors they have also larger sets but they come at the but bigger price So but 72 colors of cock ignores that will be the semi hard. They are really good as well so they're amazing value for money. So now we're gonna go from these two another type of soft pastels and the's are pencils. So the pencils I have three brands here. I have different brands at home, but I just wanted to show you the most common ones. So the 1st 1 is the fiber Castel. So if you have done anything in charge, if you've done any art classes or courses, maybe you've heard of fiber Castel They are wonderful. Brand fest tells Oh, there are wonderful friend of art materials. Sorry. And so this is basically pastel in a pencil in a wooden casing, and you can see that the principle is the same. But as it's harder, I can create thinner lines if I have a sharp enough point. So these off all the pastel pencils that I have, these will be the hardest, so fiber Castel are the hardest pencils. The next one is Garba Fellows, so with carbon fellows, they are softer than fiber. Cast tells you can see they also blend very nicely. You can create thin works with them and then I also have the cocaine or the same as the pastels that I was talking about. So this is a joke on the pencil and they are really soft. This pencils are very nice, but the negative downside of these pencils is that they come in a set of 48 only, whereas both of these come in a set of 60. There are other brands, like their Wentz or current dash, that are also available in on the market, and they are really good. But Karen Dash are very expensive, and if you're just starting out with pastels, I think you can get away with cock ignores. They are amazing, amazing value for money. So this goes for the pastels themselves. Now let's talk about paper. The paper that I'm using and is this same surface here is council on me talents paper. So basically, this paper comes in different shades and it has two sides. We will be working on the reverse side. So for now I'm working on this more textured side and it has a tooth. You can see the tooth that's shining through. So basically it has these little honey comb kind off patterns on it. But on the reverse side, it's a lots and remembered still accept pastels. Normally, I do not use these papers because I am working very detailed, and I work on realistic things like landscapes and wildlife. So I need a lot more tooth of the paper, and I work on velour and on past Allnut surfaces. But these papers are a lot more expensive, and if you're just starting out and you want to try out the basic techniques, you can start out with the cheaper, very version off paper. Consul Mittens and we are going to do all the projects in this glass on this paper only so we will not be going into very tiny details and into any complicated work that is a lot more advanced. So this classes for the total total beginners and one more last thing that I wanted to mention before we go on, I want to show you these two things. So this, as we're working on console mittens, this is a color shaper, and this thing is for blending colors. So if I put my best tell here on the paper, I can blend it out with my finger, but with the finger. Sometimes when you blend it out, it lifts off a lot of pastel off of the paper. So with the color shape, our I can do the same thing. This one was dirty just a second. Clean it off. So I'm making sure also that it's not only clean, but it also has to be dry, never, ever what you're pastels and intentionally unintentionally. You can always use the wet under paintings and different techniques like that. But those are the more advanced techniques. I don't want to talkto about them in this class. I will be doing more advanced glasses for that, but basically with the color shaper. So you see, you blend in the color into the paper, kind of rubs the paper the color into the paper. So if we do, for example, a softer pastel here, if I blend it out with my finger here, or I can lend it out and creates a richer color if I blend it out with the color shaper. So this is a tool that is necessary for this kind of paper, and it also is very easy to go into those detailed areas and to create those thinner kind of marks on the paper as well. So if you need to blend out just one line, for example, it's a whisker or something, and you can blend it out. So this is one thing, and then I want to show you also. This is a brush. So this is a very cheap brush that I cut off, that I used this edge and I cut it off, and basically what I do with this brush is when I need to remove some pastel from somewhere , I will rub and it's going to come off. So you see that there's a pastel dust gathering here, so this is the top layer of pastel that I managed to remove as I blended this end with my finger. It doesn't come off as good. So if you made a mistake, let's say you put pastel on the paper here and you made a mistake and you don't want this past all to be there. What you do is you rub it off with your brush. You can also use the racers. I do not tend to use the racers in my work because in pastel, it's so easy to control the colors and so easy to change things that you don't need to like . I almost don't use the brush, but it's a good idea to have, because everyone has brushes at home and it's a very cheap, very into things with pastel. If you don't want, um, layer over the existing layers Also, sometimes when you saturate the tooth of the paper too much, let's say I put a lot of passed out a soft pastel here, so I covered this area pretty good, and I want to put something on top of it. You can see that doesn't layer as well, so it barely is there. Even with this blue. I don't manage to add any more layers. So what I do again? I can group some pastel off and there we go. I can add more layers. So these are the main essential tools that we will be using for this class. You will not need anything else. Um, except for a set of pastels and at least one pastel pencil. I would suggest you get a black pastel pencil and the white pastel pencil. If you don't want to invest in a whole set. So that's it. We will not need any more other materials. Before I forget, I wanted to show you also one more thing. So these are the wet wipes that I used to clean my hands when I'm working with pastels. When you work with pastels, there is a lot of dust on this kind of paper coming off. And also, when you touch pastels themselves, your hands pick up a lot of pigment, so not to contaminate your colors. When you use darker and lighter pastels, clean your hands on the white Would wipe or, uh, what? Or a wet, um, fiber cloth. I also use those the ones that I use for dusting, and it's a great way to keep your hands clean. And it's a great way to keep your paper cleans well, so now we can head off to the next lesson. 3. Lesson 2: Soft Pastel Techniques: Hey, guys. And welcome to the next lesson. So, in this lesson, I will show you different techniques for different approaches and what we are going to be doing with the pastels in the project. So the first thing I want to do is a simple blending. So I lay on my pastel on the paper and I just blended out with my finger in this case. So this is ah, semi hard passed all its not very, very soft. But it's soft enough to cover the paper very well. So you can see the color is very rich there, and this is one of the most basic techniques that you use in pastel. So the next technique I want to show you is blending out to the white. So we're using white paper. Usually I used toned papers for pastel, but we will talk about it a bit later. So now I want to concentrate on techniques only. So what I'm doing is I'm blending it out the same way as I did previously. But now I'm dragging the pigment out and we're creating this kind of greed dated yellow that goes into white. So there we go. Two very simple techniques that are very easy to achieve on any paper. Now, the next thing that we're gonna do is we're going to mix two colors. So this is the same Rembrandt that I was using to show you the materials, and now we're going to do a gradation from one color into the other. So I'm placing my yellow on one side, and then I take my blue and I'm placing next to it. Now I'm gonna clean my hands on my wip just so that they're clean and making sure that my hands are always dry because if I go with the weapon to the pastel, it's gonna leave a stain on the paper. So I'm taking my clean hands and again I'm rubbing in the blue. I think I'm gonna add a bit more blue here. So here are implying a lot of pressure. Just a deposit as much pastel as I want. I'm rubbing it in and then I'm going into the yellow now my fingers dirty, I wipe it off, clean it. And now I'm going into the yellow and going towards the blue. And there we go. We have agreed ation from yellow into blue. We can layer over these this again if we want stronger colors. For example, if it wasn't yellow enough, we can lay or more. And there we go. We have a stronger gradation, a more pigmented gradation here, So this is the easiest way to kind of mix the colors on the paper very often. If I don't have the color that I need, I mix my colors together with the pastels that I have, especially if I need to dark and something. If I don't have a very dark pastel off that color, I will add some black. I'll mix into it, and then it's going to create that darker shade that I need. So next I want to show you is how to layer over the existing layers. So if you have dust on your paper, you can blow it off. It's not very good to breathe in pastel dust, so usually I just tap my paper against the table. But when I'm working with this paper, but other papers, if you try past all Matola velour, they don't create as much dust. So thus does one thing that is inevitable in your hands are going to get always be in different colors, and I also end up having pastel on my face, usually when I work. But yeah, the dust, it's just there. So I'm layering my first layer, and in this technique, I want to show you how we can add more color to an existing area. So I'm just cross hatching over this area, and you can see that it's not very blue, and it's not green, but it creates this kind of an effect of two colors being present, a livelier effect than if I were just do layer my blue over yellow. So these are the two ways that you can create these kind of colorful combinations that still allow you to see both colors at the same time. I don't really like this technique because it's not meant for realistic work, but these are great ways to actually use pastels in abstract paintings. And then I wanted to show you also one more thing. How you can add some interest into your paintings very easily. So for that I'm going to cover an area here with my pastel. I'm going to blend it in and you see, because I didn't clean my hands. The yellow has gotten into my blues, so it's kind of mixing. But that's fine at this point, can still layer over it. So now I have this blue here and one of the things that we will be doing is stumbling. So I'm using my fingernail and I'm going to scratch against the pastel and deposit the dust onto the paper. So now if I use my fingers, I will show you what happens if even if I cleaned my fingers and I tried to press the dust in, it's gonna lift off, right? So it's going to create this very subtle effect. You can use this for snow, for example, White on blue. I would look really nice, but to create stars in our projects, I'm going to show you this trick. What I'm using is a documents leave. So this one has been used. You can see how not very clean it is. But if you need to just place it on the paper, then just rub with your hand. From this way, the dust sinks into the surface of the paper and creates that speckled look without it lifting off, you can still smudge it. If you do, then it's going to kind of soft in it and mix in with the blue. But by adding, for example, let's up. They get blue here and let's add some yellow more so by rubbing it in. It stays on the paper and it looks very neat. There we go. So these are the main techniques. I don't want to go into any difficult techniques for pastels because pastels are such unique medium. They can be used in all these different ways. And most importantly, I want you to be able to feel the pastels, how they blend, how they smoothing out and how to create marks with pastels. So experiment with using your pastels on different judges. It's OK, they break, nothing happened. So just experiment with your pastels. Also with the pencils. We will be using the pencils if you do not know how to sharpen the pencils. I have YouTube videos about how to sharpen the pencils. I don't want to make this class any longer, but if you cannot find them, do you ask me? I will guide you to it. But the pencils, I sharpen them either with a knife or with, uh, crank held sharpener, So that's a different thing. But as we were going to be using the pencils very few in this class, I will not talk about them too much. So pencils, pencils. Okay, so now we're ready to head off to the next lesson. 4. Lesson 3: Sunset Sky: So for this first project that we're going to be doing together, I want to do a sunset sky. So this is going to be a very easy project, and it's going to give you the feel for the past tells how to actually put it on the paper and how just much it. So we're going to be doing a lot of smudging. I take my paper onto the back of my pad or you can use a board. But I taped it with the back side. So this is the smoother side of the paper, not the very textured one. And I have a selection of pastels that I will be using. I will be using very light yellow, a darker yellow on orange, a deep red and the black. So the first thing I do is I start at the bottom with my son. I decide that my son is going to be here, and I'm creating this circular shape and rubbing it in. Don't worry, if it doesn't come out as right circle here on this side, we're going to correct it in case so there I have my son, and now I'm going up from the sun and I'm making these sweeping motions all the way up into my sky. So as clouds, usually they go her is on Tilly in this direction, so kind of from right to left, these are going to be my clouds. So I'm creating these very easy shapes here. I want to give a different direction to some of my clouds. I'm just moving them's likely this way. So the next thing I do is I take my warmer yellow, and with this I'm going over those areas next to my lighter yellow. I'm not covering them completely, but I'm going in between the areas here not everywhere, though just kind of going along the shapes that I created and here as well where my son is so I can blend this in likely just so I see where I can apply my next colors. I'm not using a lot of pressure here to rub it in very, very hard into the paper. I'm just rubbing it very gently so you can see we have kind of two colors already great hating gray dating one from the other. Next thing I do, I take my orange. So this is a very bright, intense are orange, and I'm passing in those zones in between. And I'm very, very lightly applying it because this is a very soft pastel, some passing in those zones where my darker yellow is and I'm going to go all the way until the sun. I'm going to add this orange here, over the yellow as well and on top of my painting as well. So I'm fine. I'm following constantly the direction of strokes that I did previously. So now again, we can rub everything in. I'm trying not to go too much over the yellows. I'm using cleaner finger to go and blend the areas between the orange and the yellow, just not to pollute my yellow too much with that orange because it's very strong. And again, I'm rubbing everything in in the direction of the strokes so you can see how smooth that's becoming, using cleaner fingers just not too again not to contaminate the yellow. And I can use a wet wipe to clean off my fingers and continue again. I'm making sure that my fingers are completely dry, because if I were to put my wet finger in there, it's gonna and really bad. And again I'm continuing to smudge everything in. Don't worry. If we can still see the paper shining through, there will be layering multiple layers. This paper it's really good. Any paper, actually that has some tooth tooth, even watercolor paper. The rougher one will accept multiple layers of pastels. So trying not to lose my yellows here and I'm moving downwards. I love it when the colors mixed together on the paper just creates this wonderful effect that you can achieve so easily with pastels. I'm going to rub it in. The only thing that I would advise is to be careful is with the son. So the son, I don't want it to get darker. It's going to be the lightest point or on our painting. So now we have our base layer set. What I'm going to do next is I'm going to take my dark red and I'm going to add the darkest tones to my sunset, and I'm going through the edges. I want my darkest tones to be more on the edges, and again I'm going into these horizontal line strokes and darkening it up. So by the horizon is going to be a lot redder. Then on the top, I'm going to rub it in. - So now if I have too much dust, I can blow it off, or I can just tap it against the table to get rid of it. So there we have the first layer set. Now we can start adding the lights again. I'm going to add my like yellow over the sun again, and I will go over that area here around the sun, bringing in some strokes just to create those kind of resemblance is off clouds near the sun and rubbing them in. Lately, I'm trying not to contaminate the son too much with my red, and I'm going to apply a thicker layer of pastel here just kind of outline that, son. Now, with this darker yellow, I'm going to add a brighter spot here. So this is going to be one of my clouds illuminated by the sun and just a bit to this side as well. And I'm rubbing it in like, very lightly. It's with my orange. I'm going to create thes clouds here on the sides as well. And with my black, I'm going to dark enough the bottom here, adding a bit more red over the top. It's going to help me blend the black and the red, so I'm letting a lot more yellow reds now and again. I'm moving in these horizontal strokes, and so we have our initial layers here and we're moving up now. I'm adding a bit more orange, and I will had also some yellow to this orange not to take another color. So I wanted to be more yellowy orange. And here I'm going to add also some black, just to darken it up slightly, very, very thin layers of black. So is it getting away from the sun? It's going to get darker and not to use many colors. You can use also a brown here and create these kind of darker streaks. But we can get away with only these colors and also some black. Here there can it up, and now I'm going to go in back with my orange and in placing it over the blacks, just to give it more color. So this creates kind of dark orange brownish color. You can see how much dust comes off when I tap it, and Now I'm going to add my yellows because there's quite a lot of yellow in the sky in the evenings Again, I'm moving in the same strokes that I had underneath in creating those colors in the horizontal direction, but more here in the center. We can you and create these strokes off clouds that are quite thin. More Richard yellow here and light enough the sun, some lighter strokes again in those But it's her yellows. We're pretty much done with the sunset, except for the fact that I went to darken it up on this side as well, cementing black and red together to create the darker toll. And I'm lending it out. I'm gonna clean my hands because I went over into my son here. I'm just gonna tap off the dust. So making sure that my hands are dry I'm going to clean up the area around the sun and I'm going from the light into the darkness. Here's stick away that black. If you've gone over in the area, quit another color. It's OK. You can still fix it. Don't worry. We can go in with the little brush and just clean off apart. If we if need be. But usually you can layer some colors on top of it on, they will stay there nicely. What I wanted you is I want to have a bit more sun near infrared near the sun. So I'm gonna clean my hands again, rubbing them against my own hand and I'm gonna add lift of reds here. So these reds, I'm going to look nice here and with a clean finger. I'm gonna drop them in going around the sun with more red here. So our sky practically is ready. What we need now is something of an interest. I think here we can add a lighter cloud and I'm using my clean finger just to rub this in. And I want to add this line that goes this way. Just create up perpendicular actually another perpendicular, more diagonal crossing thes diagonals off the sky that we created. So it's going to create more interest. I'm just gonna warm it up, but here with the yellow as well. And I think we can call this sky done what we're going to be adding next is something to go on top off our sky. And for this I wanted to create either trees or some reads that are sticking out by the lake, for example. So the first thing that I do is I take my black and I cover the year young that is right under Earth, the horizon line here. I don't have to go in any particular direction because it's going to be just black. And then I will rub it in matting more black where I need it. And as you've seen, I'm using the pastels on the side. I'm not using the very tip of pastel to cover an area, so I'm using the pastel on the side all the time. So tha this wouldn't look very nice if we had only this flat horizon line. So what I want to do is I want to change a bit the elevation here, so it's more interesting, and we will be adding those reads. Now we're just strengthening that line here and now with my black. I'm not using a pencil for this because it's doable with just the side of the best tell. But if you don't manage to do thinner line, you can use a hard there pastel like this black for example that I have from cocking or or also contact where you can use a pastel pencil black pastel pencil. But I think I'm gonna use this harder one now to create our grasses. So I want these grasses to grow from this side. When I'm doing, I'm starting in the black. I'm dragging it out all the way here and letting it go. And then at the top, I'm creating these stalking, sweeping motions to create the tip of the grass. I'm not being particularly careful off how these grasses should be, but I'm trying to create a pleasant composition here. So here will have a grass that kind of fold over. This way it's going to be thicker here. There will have some grasses coming off of these, and here I'm gonna have ah, thicker Bush here grass. So it's leaning this way. I don't even know how those grasses air cold ones that have these fluffy grand events to them. Fact, I've seen a lot of them today at the beach, so we can leave it at that or we can add some more here. Just degree it with more interest. But just some grass is standing out tall and also on this side just to keep these grasses. Some company here we can create these spear shaped grasses just to change it up a bit. - So there. Now I'm going to knock all the back dust, all the black dust off the paper. And what's left to do is just London higher into the grass, decreed this kind of resemblance of grass growing here in the back as well. And also here gonna do the same thing. It's gonna go up into the grass, just a doctor up this way. And there we go. Our first project is complete. I would really love to see how you create your sunsets. And maybe you would like to add an animal silhouette on this one. It would be really great. Or just look at different references of grasses. And maybe you can create your own little composition that is going to be very pleasant to look at. So this is a wonderful first painting in pastels that you can do. It's very easy to achieve this result, and it looks stunning. Let's move on to the next lesson 5. Lesson 4: Bottom of the Sea: So for this next lesson, we're going to be creating, see, But to make it more interesting, I'm going to show you how it agreed on underwater painting. So I'm going to be using different shades of blue here. You can't go wrong. So whatever blues are closer to your heart, use those blues. Most importantly, that you have different values from the lightest and into the darker blue. This is almost grayish blue here and also some blacks. So let's start. The first thing that I'm going to do is of course, I take my paper onto my board so it could be any type. To be honest, just make sure that this tape comes off off the paper easily enough and I'm using masking tape for it. The first thing that I do is I take my lightest blue and I am going to create the source of light. So this is going to be light coming from up above the surface of the water and I'm creating these again, as in the sky. I'm creating these horizontal strokes. That's kind of follow the surface of the water like this. So this is going to be my lightest part in my fainting. I'm not using white for this because, like blue is light enough. Next, with my next value of blue, I'm going to create the secondary lights that are going to be here again. I'm moving in these movements, that car horizontal and the closer to the surface here to the top. They're going to be broader marks. And as we go further away, they're going to be less broad with the same color I'm going in. So this is the second value of blue in between these lights that I have. And now I'm going to add a layer off this blue here. So covering this area not very sickly, but covering it around here. Next, I'm going to take a very brighter and British blue cool blue and I'm going to cover the area here almost until the bottom. And in between these waves of the surface and some here again, I'm always moving horizontally. Every stroke that I make is always horizontal. Now this is a grayish blue and it's very beautiful for water from passing over to this grayish blue over my lively, cool blue but not everywhere again I'm moving in the horizontal strokes, and the closer we get to the bottom, the deeper it's going to get even. Here it confess over this just lightly, kind of glazing over it. And here I'm pressing just a bit over those writer blue areas. So what we can do now is blended olden. So I'm gonna blend the bottom and first, because this was the easier part and again moving in these horizontal movements to create the sense of water. Now I have the blue on my fingers, but it's okay. I can still continue to blend with the same colors, and I go over my water reflections on the surface. So, as you can see, it blended in very beautifully. Now I need to clean my hands just to make sure that I don't contaminate that weight too much and cleaning the hands drying them off. And what I'm gonna do now is I start blending in those lighter areas. Don't worry if here there's nothing off pastel to blend, we're going to be adding more players over it. And now I'm just gonna go on, blend it all together here. So now we have the first initial layer of our see underwater. It still doesn't look like it. Now we can layer over the top of it. So what I'm gonna do is with the same second value off my blue, I'm going to add again layers over the top of the later parts that were here and again. I'm going kind of randomly over these areas, and I'm creating these horizontal strokes to resemble the water from underneath and again more here, some stronger strokes here and then some of them You can leave and blended. They're going to look good as they are. I will need some darks, though, and I need to intensify a bit. I think this is not going to be dark enough. I will use a bit of black to intensify those darks in between these layers Just a bit of black to intensify the color. And I'm going too fast with my grayish blue on talk just to mix the black together Just like to make it look to black and I'm blending everything in. Okay, so this is good. And now I'm gonna add a bit more of this color again, like chop emotions. This is going to be the reflections on our see that we see underneath and the further we go away, the less we can see them. We can leave it the deck. We don't need to blend this in next. I'm gonna go back here and I'm gonna intensify these colors here with a darker blue. It's kind of grayish blue in between that reflection that we have here again chopping works . I don't have to be precise. And again, I'm moving in the direction off the see how the waves are going so horizontally lending din . And now here on the surface, I'm going to go with my lightest blue and I'm going to add those definite marks now on top again, I'm making them interrupted because the water is move in movement and they're not going to stay completely still, They're gonna be completely like horizontal. They are still moving. And again, as we move away further away, I'm going to switch to my doctor color even darker here, it can go with this third value that I have. So this is going to be our top of the sea Now here I'm gonna with more blue, just more figment and I'm gonna go with my black so I'm letting black. I will be rubbing this old and now probably over the top. And now we're going to darken this up just to create that sense of depth. Because the closer we get to the surface, the lighter the color becomes. So you see, you don't need a huge number of colors, actually paint with pastels, but the more the better, of course, but you can get away with just a handful. I'm gonna have a bit more offers. Mystere, Breyer Blue blended in. I think we cannot still a bit some more black just to deep in it a bit more. And as I go to the top, I lightened the pressure with which I'm smudging everything. So now what I need to do is I need Teoh dark in a bit, the top as well. So I want to add a bit more darker blues here at the top and just create the before shadows here because I don't like how light it looks. This is Ah, harder. Best hope Gonna blaze over with it here. I just blended in. So this is quite good. It's enough. I lost a bit of marks here. I think this is good enough. We can shake off the dust, and I'm gonna just reinstate some of these marks here. So now what we lack is some light coming from the see. What I'm doing is I'm taking my pastel on the side and I'm lightly dragging it over my paper like this. So this came out too strong, so I'm gonna blend it in a bit, but I'm lending it in the direction of the sunlight. So I need to clean my hands again because I'm gonna dirty it. And at this point, I think that this is slightly too light. I still need to glaze with some black over it, so just darken it up a bit so we can actually see the sunlight on those dark surface, right? To rub it in again, cleaning my hands and I'm going to dry them fast. And now I'm going from the lights into the dark, creating these rays of sun. What is the clean finger again? Taking the same pastel, Very likely cleaning off my hands, drawing them and going over my raise. So this creates this kind of sense of light. I'm going to clean it with my other hand. That's clean now. So here we have the sunlight and the darkness. Now, to make it more interesting, this painting I want to add something very nice that I think girls will love very much. Some thinking my passed out And you can use a pencil for this, but you can use also harder pastel to draw the shape. So what I'm gonna do is I'm going to start drawing out my mermaid. I'm trying to draw the shapes first. This is going to be the tail in the here and here. We're going to hide her arm with and our tail. And now I can use my darker pastel because harder pastels, they will never be as dark as soft pastels. So I'm using my softer black best l to layer in my shape. - I think that tail came out a bit too long. Scrape it out. I'm gonna make it shorter because it's very easy to correct your shapes and pastels. So there we go. This is gonna be the tail from going to rub this into the paper because it's dark as it is , this area just gonna clean my hands to rub this bit and some but lighter one. And here I'm going to use my color shaper. So to rub the mermaid in, I'm going to use the color shaper because I can do this with my finger. But my fingers air notice fine ended as the color shapers with the color shape. Or I can even use it to kind of draw my shape in just to push the pastel around green, that sense of shape those okay, that's a huge knows I gave her and clean my brush. It's just gonna cleaning up a bit. I don't like that chin as well. Just fix it a bit. You can have a smaller chin here definitely and the here so you can see how I can get into those find our areas a lot easier with the color shaper than if I were to work with my finger creating those tips of the hair. But those will will be adding at the very end, just blending out the here. Now I'm blending a toll and until the end. So our mermaid is in and I want just to let enough these parts here just to clean it up to clean up the sword. I'm using my blue. I'm going over these areas that you came too dark, being given up to smash the hair too much because it's very easy to correct any shape with pastels. So now I want to create those finer hair details and then rubbing a toland. And now, just to finish it all off, it's gonna pull out the bit of darkness alongside those rays of light. Just create kind of more varied effect. And now to finish it all off, I still black with the later when I can go in here and just fix that profile of the Mermaid . And now I'm gonna clean my color shaper. Use a clean color shape or two. Actually, I can use my finger clean finger to blend it in here, being sure that I'm not using a wet finger. I'm just rubbing it and carefully around the So what? So here we have the silhouette of the mermaid, and I'm gonna create also some seaweed. So I'm starting at the bottom corner here, and I'm going to use my harder best tell again to create those leave strokes who my pastel broke, making it a bit sicker it's actually work in this corner a bit more to create kind of ocean floor. We're almost done. Just a couple more seaweeds here and maybe some on this side just to go with it. There we go. We have our mermaid swimming towards the sun. So I hope you enjoyed this one. Let's move onto the next one. 6. Lesson 5: Galaxy sky: Hey, guys, welcome to the last listen of this class. So in this we're going to be painting a Galaxies kind. The best tells that I'm using coming these colors. You do not need to use the same exact colors. You can go crazy and choose whatever colors you like. If you would like to make the sky green, for example, that will work as well. So, most importantly is that I have a range of values from the very light until the dark and I have yellows. Thanks and then purples. And of course I will need the black pastel. So all of these air soft pastels, not that square harder ones. It's all blaze thes, you hear. And then I will be using the two pencils that I was talking about in the beginning, in the materials class. And it's a white and the black pencil. This is a carb Othello pencil, and this one is the cocaine or pencil. But it doesn't matter which brand you have, and then a color shaper. It's basically the same principle as the one that I showed you. But they come in different shapes and sizes so you can use different color shapers. Then I will need something round so that we can trace around a circle. So it's a lot easier to do with something that you can trace around instead of drawing it with your hand. And then we will need the documents leave. So let's begin. So what I'm going to use for my latest? I'll use this pink and I'm going to create a diagonal line that runs through this guy approximately like this. Then I'm going to add some punches of this leg. I think in different areas I'm not going into the corner completely because compositionally wise, everything that ends in a corner, all the lines that end up precisely in the corner, they will look a bit awkward. So whenever you're trying to make up a composition, try to create these lines that don't end up in corners but somewhere lower or higher. So now I use my light think I'm moving on to my second value of think So I have these. They are quite similar. So we'll see. I will judge which one I like more. So this is quite light and I'm placing it right next. Should this think that I created already and again. I'm creating these little patches of color and then I'm taking my next think. And you can see that this is a softer pastel and it's more intense and color as well. So, again, I'm making these movements are random, so I'm quite happy with that. Now I'm going into my darker Think so. This is a warmer, uh, pink, and this is going to be a more intense closer to the purplish think and again I'm going in here with this Think in creating these patches of color. Next is my first value of the purple, and I'm going further away with purple, adding some that's here in their of the purple. And I did the same thing here at the bottom. So this is going to agree this kind of pink, milky way in the sky And now here comes my dark purple. So this is going to be our darkest value again. I'm going in crashes, color and the same here on top. Now that we are ready to blend, the first thing I do is buy clean my hands, so because I want to start lending for my lightest values into my darkest. I have the dark pastel on my fingers and that is going to you will see contaminate the pink pastel here. So for that you need to clean my hands again. I'm making sure that my hands were dry before I touch the paper. So I need to make sure that they are drying. And I started blending, starting with my lightest value. So I'm blending it in the circular motions. Just Teoh create a smooth transition from one color into the other. So the first thing I do, I blend out the latest batch. Next, I'm gonna move downwards here, and I'm going to go through those pinks. I'm not adding too much pressure here because it's fairly easy to lend passed on this paper . So I'm trying not to go into my lights too much when I'm passing through the dark's so you can see what the beautiful transition it creates and how smoothly it blends together. And here we have the darkest purple. Now, with my clean finger, I'm going to rub these places more. Just just create this mother transition into my lights. Okay, so this side I like it Now I'm going to do the same thing with the upper part and any to clean my hand again because I don't want to contaminate my latest values here again, with a dry hand, I'm starting to blend. Now I can tap the dust, I'm getting rid of the dust and we can continue adding next layers again. I'm going in with my lighter. Thinks I'm going a bit out of the lightest part that we created to create somewhere interest. A jagged the line again. I'm putting my pinks here, the next value of think and the propose. So I need to make this port dark enough so that we have this kind of a transition from the lights to darks. We also like to propose from so with pastels, it's very good to layer your colors. So what I mean by layering is placing one layer of color onto another one. And this way you will be creating those beautiful, intense colors instead of pressing the pastel very hard. In the very beginning. Just to deposit is much color that you want on the paper. So it's better to work in thin layers and go slowly. I'm rubbing these colors in gonna drag some darkness a bit into this light just to give it another shape. But I'm doing the same thing here and toughing off piste. Now with clean finger, I'm going to smooth out of it. This area, this latest area that we have of this Milky way. And I think I will add 1/3 layer patches just some brighter colors here just to break up the break up. Tough purples likely and also here. Okay, so I'm quite happy with my sky for now. What are we were going to do, ISS. We're going to create our stars. But before that, I would like to cover the bottom part with the black pastel. This is going to be our ground. Have the tape that instinct here to be careful. I'm not worried about giving it any precise shake. Oh, I'm thinking about is that I want the silhouette of my dear to stand here. I'm uploading my black fast tell and rubbing it in again. I will be doing this in two layers because it's going to give me a deeper, richer color and going to cover all those areas here where the tooth of the papers shining through I'm rubbing it in the first time and then I will be able to deposit more pastel on top of it. Now I can top off my dust and we can start creating stars for that. First, I will have to clean my hands, drive them off. And now what I want to do is I want to take my very like yellow pastel. And we will be doing the technique that I showed you, the scraping the dust onto the paper. What I'm doing is I'm scraping my dust off, especially in this Milky way area, because I wanted to be light from the stars. I'm going all the way around here, so I'm trying not to go over my black. But I will still be able to blend it just in case I'm creating these stars and kind of patches. And now I will need my documents leave to rub this in Just one of happy enough. How much stars? How many stars are half here in this guy more on the Milky Way. So now I need the documents leave. I'm rubbing in my stars. I'm going to tap off the excess dist! So these are older stars that stayed on paper. This big one, it's gonna come off tapping it. Good. So these are our stars now to create larger stars. Great. The more pleasant composition. I'm going to tell my pastel on the paper. This is a like yellow and I'm going to create these larger stars The shine brighter. So here I have my stars. I'm quite happy with that for now. What I'm going to do is I'm going to drop my dear. So I have a reference photo that I found on picks a bit off a deer and I'm going to draw facility the dear. Now you can use a reference photo or you can use a black silhouette. You can find them online or on pics of a also of any animal that you like and just draw it out on the paper. Another way to do it is to cut it out, printed out, cut it out and just trace around it. It's a very easy way to do it. So as you if you are not feeling very confident withdrawing you can always do it this way. So to do the deer, I will be using a black pastel pencil. Now I want to outline where my dear is going to be on board. I'm trying to get the proportions right. Okay. So happy with shape of my dear. Now I'm going to take the black pastel, and I'm going to cover old area that I drew out here. I'm gonna blend this black into the purple just to take away that line. So I'm gonna blend out. I'm going to cover the area off the deer with my black pastel. I'm trying not to go out of the lines. And here I'm going to raise this a bit. Just so the deer stands on the hill. I'm using black pastel instead of the black pastel pencil is just because of the fact that black pastel, the soft pastel is going to be a lot darker than the pastel pencil itself. You can already see the difference between the two being careful not to go out of the lines so that I can keep that silhouette crisp. Take your time. Most importantly, do not rush it. Take your time. You have all the time you need to create your wonderful painting. So? So there we go. Here. I covered the deer And first I'm gonna blend it out. I start with my finger because this area is quite big. And then I will use the color shape or the one that we discussed in the material section. I'm going close to the edge here being careful and that is it. This Issa's faras I will go with my finger. Now I can start blending everything with my color shaper. I'm going carefully again not to go out of the lines. Don't worry. If you go out of the edges, we still can correct that with our purples. Now I'm gonna tap away the dust, okay? And I'm gonna correct the shape with my pencil. Just those very edges. - So there I have my shape in place and now to collect, correct this area here. Would I have a bit of dust of the black going onto it on the purple, medically my hands and was my think gonna add more color here on the edge and rub it in, not smudging the black. We have the deer now we need but the antlers and I have the shape already drawn out. So I will be using my black best out again if I need to correct it. It's very easy doable with my letter pink to go over this area. Okay, so we can blend these out with a color shaper. Now what I want to do, we give place our moon. Either here or I was having the idea of placing the moon in between his employers. So either way is great, but do however you prefer doing this, so the technique is the same. So we place the mood here is going to look as if he's holding the moon off with his employers. What I'm going to do is I'm going to take my weight postal pencil, and trace a room my cup to create the moon. There it is. No the moon itself. We will need to give it some craters. Right? So with my yellow past all the same, when I used for the stars, I'm going to at some color to the edges. So making sure that one of my injustice crisp on the site and blended out towards the inside of the moon Going to have another patch of yellow here and here. If I go out, I can still correct it with my finger because we have big pastel on learning. Now that we have the shape in place, we can create these sharper edges and some creatures. And now, with my purple, I can create those darker creatures. And now, with the darker purple here, I can also add a darker layer on the very corner. Just do bring out the moon. And here I'm just gonna add a bit more of this darkness into the creatures. So there we have the moon. Now, the thing that's lacking is also I think I'm gonna have just a bit of a border here around the moon and lend it out as well. Just to give that shape they're real, does the moon. And now what we need to do is handsome. Take away the dust and had some trees on this side. I'm going to create some trees here, and what I'm doing is some taking my black pesto, and I'm going over this area creating a forest so jagged he movements and I'm adding more black in the middle off the tree sounds to create, uh, resemblance of brunch is being more translucent here of smaller tree. So this is our trees. And here I'm gonna create some grass for him to stand on. I'm gonna just flick the fence, Stella words. And there's our grass. Now all that's left to do is blend. This started in. I'm not making it very sharp. The line here, I'm kind of going into the purple, just create shorter grasses with my finger lending in the trees just slightly. The Syria in between the trees just darker so as to create sense of trees by being behind there. So there we go, our dear on the moon with the Galaxies guy is already 7. Your Project: So this is the end of the course. Thank you for watching it. And by now, if you followed me step by step, you have created three wonderful paintings. I really hope you enjoyed all the process as much as I do. If you would like to see more tutorials and artsy type videos, I have a YouTube channel that you can follow. And I will be doing more courses here on skill. Shiras. Well, and for now, I will see you in the next courses by