Using Chalk Pastels: Seamless Blending for Beginners

1. Introduction: If you hate the midst of chalk pastels, but you loved as smooth blend quality of the medium. Well, by the end of this class, you'll be able to seamlessly blend pastel colors and apply these same techniques to help blend other media is well, hey, my name is Heather sportsman with over 15 years of experience as a mixed media artists and arts educator. I know that anyone can benefit from these clays, but it's perfect for beginners. One of my most treasured quotes is pencils, paintbrushes, and other art tools are inanimate objects. They can do no more than what we allow them to do. Now that's a powerful statement. And if we apply that mantra and B theories when approaching new challenges and unfamiliar territory, our confidence will continue to grow. Now when we think about that, that can really help us to hone in and develop skills that are needed to eventually master controlling more difficult mediums like pastels. So if you have some basic knowledge on how to create a simple outline of an object, that's great. I'll cover that at the start of the class. If you're already a little excited and you want to know more, I'm not going to tell you everything. You just have to watch the project video up next. So if you really want to know what this class is all about and what I have to offer you guys, go ahead and watch that. It's going to tell you everything that you need to know for the supplies, the project, overview, everything. Okay. I have a lot to offer and I know you guys have a lot to offer as well. So come and join me as we go on this journey together to really find out what it's all about with this seamless blending pastels. I hope to see you guys soon. 2. Project Overview: Welcome to our first-class. So our class project, like I've been saying, is going to address this seamless blending that we've been talking about. It's going to help us control these chalk pastels and get that mess cleaned up. And the techniques that I teach you also will help you with layering and blending and help us navigate pastels as well as other mediums. So our project, we'll be drawing a simple lily flower using chalk pastels. Now, I know some of you are like a lily. Yes. So Lily, why do why do you ask why Lily? Well, number one, lilies petals can be easily drawn by just using basic shapes. So that's great for all experience levels, honestly too. They come in in an array of beautiful colors. And three, actually load the meaning behind the colors of lilies. Like, for example, a yellow Lily symbolizes thankfulness and desire for enjoyment. That's what we want to get out of this class, is enjoying me, right? So really what this project we can explore and create our own varieties of lilies if we want to in beautifully blended colors, Let's make it our own and have fun with it. What I'll do is I'll add some resources for your drawing reference, Lily, color, symbolism and meaning. And I'll also add a reference sheet for some blending techniques that we'll use in our class. It'll just be two techniques that we'll go over for this starting class. And I mentioned those at the outset. Those will be layering and blending. Alright, so by now I'm pretty sure you guys are curious. Supplies and materials. What do I need for this project, Heather flow? You're going to need some chalk pastels. Of course, going to need some paper. You had any, a blending stump or T and a photo of a lily for your reference. So here's some visuals for you guys. Pastels, paper, blending stump, and then a photo reference of a lily. Okay. Then let's talk about the project overview. What are the lessons like? Okay, simple, really simple. We only have 6. First, we're starting out with the outline of the flower, which is this the line that defines the outer edge or the shape of the object? Then we're gonna get into adding our background, everything that goes behind the flower. And then we're going to start adding and blending or light tones. The third lesson, the fourth lesson, we're going to be blending our mid-tones. And I'm going to introduce something called the value scale. That's going to really help you guys identify what these colors look like and where you should be. Then finally, adding the dark tones, okay? And last but not least, adding all of our final details. And I'm gonna show you all the techniques, the blending and layering, and then how to use the tools, even your fingers to add all these fine details. And I'm going to throw in a few surprises, two here and there, but it's gonna be great guys. I promise. One more thing before you get ready to jump into the next part of your listing, please make sure that you download your resources. Remember, I've uploaded that drawing reference for you. If you want to use mine, the lilies that I've uploaded, feel free to do so, they're there for you. I've uploaded also the symbolism about the colors and all that good stuff. Just for you. It may inspire and motivate, draw something out of you. I don't know. They may drop out of you and put it on the paper for you. I don't know. I'm just saying I'm joking. I'm joking. But I kid. I kid. But it's there for you as well. And also just some of the techniques as well. Alright, yeah, it's about bedtime action step. You need to go ahead and gather your materials, prep your space. If you need to go back and rewind the video to make sure that you have every material or supplies that you need to start your project successfully. Go ahead and do that now and get excited. You're on your way to seamlessly blending with chalk pastels. Alright, let's go. I know you already because I'm ready. Okay, this is gonna be so fun. I promise you. You are going to learn a lot. You're gonna be surprised at what you're able to create and develop and guess what? This is only stage one. Wait until I show you what else you can do to further advanced. You're still in later classes. This is going to be phenomenal. Okay, keep up with me. I'll see you on the next go around. 3. Outline Flower: Okay, you guys, so we're going to start off with just a outline of our lily. And if you're not familiar with an outline, is just a line that defines the outer edge or shape of an object. So we are simply focusing on what is surrounding our Lily. Okay. If you remember, when we were kids, we put our hand on the paper and we traced the outside of our hand. It's the same thing. So please don't concern yourself with everything being just ride are just so don't worry about it. We're going to have time to refine and detail all that stuff later. So just go ahead look at your reference. Whether that's digital, you're looking at your computer or your iPad or your phone, or if you haven't printed out and you're looking back and forth at it, just do your best to kind of give a general outline of the shape of your lady, Lily. Okay, That is what's important right now. And then we can go back and refine later. So it's pretty quick and easy. I'm basically done right now. Keep your fingers off your paper. That's a good rule of thumb. Just start with with test data. I'm going to talk about that more in a second and listened. So let's stay tuned. We're going to start adding our background, Nick's guys. Okay. 4. Adding The Background: Alright, now we're gonna move on. Alright, now we're gonna move on to our next topic, which is adding the background. For my particular reference. If you notice, there's a lot of greenery in the background. So I'm going to take my green. I'm just going to start adding some green to the background. One thing you might notice that I'm adding closer to the outer edge first. And that's the con, for take those pedals and integrity of their color first. Before I get too close to them and into the details. I remember what I told you about earlier. With the background, you can be a little bit more loose and free. I didn't even start off with a light tone if you noticed with the background, I started off with the dark green. That's okay. That's okay. And again, getting too close and using the technique, layering, layering my colors on top. Hey, you're going to get to put to use sound, those other tools that we've talked about. I want to go ahead and pull up my lending. And I'm gonna kinda just time-lapse this to help us kinda go a little faster. Okay, so watch me work guys. I'm going to use my blending stump or tortilla right here to just kinda explain this. Using our blending technique, I'm going to move in a circular motion. The speed may make it seem like I'm going really, really fast. I'm not going there. But the speed of the video may make it seem that way. But I am going to be going in a circular motion, speeding up, speeding it up. 5. Blending Light Tones: All right, great job guys. So ya have stayed the course with me. You ready to move on now? So if you have this little chalk dust on your paper, what you can do is just pick your pipe up by the size and you can just give it a little tap, tap, tap. It's going to happen that chalk, this is just going to fall off onto the surface of your table or you can just kinda blow the desktop. That's what my students in the actual classroom would like to do. This was also funny. Teaching during the pandemic. Using chalk pastels and watching myself and my students tried to blow the chalk dust away in forgetting that we have our mask on. That was Larry's. Yeah. So nothing wrong with wearing the mask and trying to get the job does other way. But make sure if you're going to blow the targets the way that you pull your hands down and then blow it away. Because yeah. Kinda look a little silly to blow it away and nothing's happening. Yeah. Okay. So once you've got that done, then we'll move on to the next part. Alright guys, so go ahead and get into it. Here we are. We're at the point where we're gonna go ahead and start adding our light tones to our lily petals now, yes, we are finally getting into the meat and potatoes of Alice. And I guess you can say, I think I'm gonna go ahead and just start off with adding the tints of my colors. Yes, the tints. I've lived a little message for you here. I'm going to start with these two. I have a lot of really light tinge of yellow. If you look at the photo reference of the lily that I'm using for my particular picture. And so I'm going to start with these very light tones of yellow or tints of yellow. And again, I'm not going to too close to the edge. But just saying how loose and free with my chalk pastels here. And again, I just really a Julia, I loved office deals, struggles how much with them in the beginning. Just to be transparent because of allergic reactions, I'm not even going to lie. I called your alma Venus in sneezed and it was, it was awful, I mean, really bad. But I push through, I persevered. And now this honestly has become one of my favorite mediums to use. So despite some of the challenges that will bring, I want you guys to get into it. And so you see, I have all these chalk does oh, it's polynomial. Don't don't forget guys. Oh, yeah. It may seem like a lot. It's okay. Shake it off. Take your reg y. Okay. It's on your surface. Take you read, wipe it off. It's no big deal. Wipe it off. Okay. We can get this cleaned up in a matter of six wallah. Look at this mescaline opening, you get right back to work. Okay. Keep that red candy. You get right back to work, you right back into things. Now I'm going to start focusing on the shape of my petals. This is where things are going to start to take form a little more. Okay? These are going to start to take form a little more and you're going to start to see how your petals are going to begin to be shaped by your colors. Right now I'm still I'm still here with my light tone. Believe it or not, we haven't gotten to the mid tones yet. We're still with the light tones. So just watch and see how your petals are going to begin to take shape. Okay? Things are really starting to bloom and I'm going to, I'm just so excited to see where you guys are going to take your lilies and how you guys are going to start to grow. Not only as artists, but just as individuals. With your pride and your confidence with your artistry and where you're going. So let's keep going, guys. See, let's see what's going to happen as we develop and grow together in this course. But again, keep layering and keep blending is just as we've been doing. Feel free. Use your fingers, use your tools. Your blending stump. Right now. I'm just layering these colors on top. Going with it. And you see I'm kinda going outside the lines. I really want you to look at these. Pay attention. I'm going to zoom in for a second. Look at this. Look at this. I'm going outside the line is okay though. Remember I have added that color close to the outer edges of the paper first, remember how we talked about that earlier? Now, we did that because you live room for error. Good job. So it doesn't matter if you go outside of the lines now, it's okay because you're just going on the background. So now let's get ready for a time left. Yeah, we're going to speed this thing up. Alright. See you guys in a few. 6. Blending Mid Tones: Okay guys, so now you are midway through, which is great. You are almost done. And we have our progress here without lily, we've done a lot of our background. As you can see. We're going to fill this in. We're going to add some more of our mid-tones now shaping those petals. We're going to finish that up. It's going to look really nice and make sure you have your reg, as I said before, your blending stump, of course, your fingers, your pastels, you ready to go? All right. I do want to bring into play here today. I've touched on it a little bit before, but I want to show you guys the value scale. And what this actually is. It helps us to see that seamless blending that we've been talking about so much. It goes from light to dark. Okay, so it basically takes a q of a color in shows us how it goes from the lightest tint to the darkest shade of that color. And I'll put a little percentage is at the bottom. Okay, of course, because seamless blending for the win, yeah, this is the goal, okay, that's what we want to achieve with our lily. Alright? So if you pay attention here, you'll just see how that these steps gradually go from one color to the name. Okay? The ten per cent to the 203040, so on and so forth. But we're going to stay in this middle area right here, that kinda 405060. This is where we want to be right in here today. So we're going to find those colors with my lily. Alright, and we're going to stay in that color space for my mid tones, right? That is what we're gonna do. That's the mid tones right in the middle. So that helps you to get a visual of what you need to do. That is your mid tone. Look at the value scale and know that the colors in that 40 to 60% range, basically your mid-tones. Alright, and I'm going to leave that value scale to the side so you can reference that. And in future lessons, when I use other materials, other mediums like pencils and stuff as well. I'm going to show you guys how to create your own value scale. So please stick around. Alright, so while I'm pulling these colors, by my mid-tones, my midtone pastels. Right now. I hope you guys are having a really, really good day. Really pretty as had. Bradley can hear my neighbors. They're Graze today, but here we go. Got my three colors and our mid tones. Let's see how I matched up. Take a look. Pretty good. What you guys think. Yeah. Yeah. I think I did. Okay. All right. All right. So moving on. Then. Go ahead and get ourselves prepared. Dive into this thing, I'm sorry, society. That is see how this is really going to start to transform. And just for review, again, remember our techniques that we are still applying. The layering, putting one color on top of another, and also the blending, blending those colors, mixing those colors together using a variety of our tools. Whether that be your blending stump, your fingers, you did, whatever it is that you have, that works. Now I'm going to start with this top petal. Here. I'm just going to start shaping, informing and just getting into methane. 7. Blending Dark Tones: I mean, seriously, do you know how proud I am of you? Wow. So we're going to look back at our value scale today for this lesson and our goal for creating our dark tones and blending them. It's staying within that 80 to 100% range. On our value scale. That's gonna be very, very, very important for us to do. We're going to continue adding our background and working on our flower petals as well. All, all those little in-between parts that show some of the darker areas. And it's just really going to make our colors pop and stand out. Okay. Now makes sure that we have our pastels and we're going to compare them. Make sure that we are choosing those that are in the 80 to 100 per cent range. Alright, now, I'm gonna put these values here to the side. We're going to go ahead and get started. Just keep this to the side for reference. If you don't have it, you know what you can do. So now I'm gonna go ahead and start selecting my dark tones. Alright, select your dark tone pastels. I have a darker brown here. That kinda goes towards the end of my 100% range. Again, if you don't have a value scale to the compare them to just use your photo reference. You have that digital digitally or you have it printed out. You can look at that. For comparison. I have about three different dark tones here. I think I've done pretty good with it again. Alright, so I'm going to sit it to the side just for now. And in looking at these colors, I'm just going to make sure first off, that I have my two check for secant. Okay. Got my rig. I'm a blended got my fingers. And I think they were good to go. Yeah, we're good to go. Alright. Let's start off. I'm going to go ahead and go with the background. One of the reasons why I'm gonna go ahead and start with the background is because the background really honestly finishing your background first, it really frames the objects in your foreground before you add your details. So it gives you a nice foundation. And I think I mentioned this maybe in less than one or two before. But notice what I'm doing here. I'm just taking my time and going around. The flowers. That fiddles of the lily is finally taking my time. And then I'm getting a little loose with it. I'm getting a little loose with it. I'm getting a little loose with it. But it's okay. It's okay. It's okay. Because I'm further away from the pedals when I am starting to get a little loose with it, right? Remember that trick? Don't stay too. Don't get too close to the petals. When you're getting really active with your movements, stay away from them. All right. But now, something I wanted to show you guys, light a fill light of faith. Now what do I mean when I say light or fix? Now, light of fakes. They are pretty cool because they can be made by adding a lighter layer on top of a darker layer. And they give like the iridescence almost to the background. And I'll show you this in a later lesson. But Just FYI, that's, that's the gold and I'm working towards back here, okay, so I'm blending some more with my fingers. Just having fun. So now I'm about to bring in a tool that I know. Yeah, when I take a nice paintbrush with pastels. Yes. This is all about the details. Okay. Yeah, I have some big chunky fingers and it's hard to get close to the edge. Paintbrush that has Dan pointed bristles more so suited for details. And that's how you get close to the right. Sorry, I got a little carried away. I just kids though is Haley I see the details on it though. Is that Chris? That is. Now we are going to get into details in the next lesson. But I just said Sure, yeah, that is just beautiful. Okay. Back to the time that sorry. 8. Adding Final Details: All right. Yeah, and we are at the finish line yet. Finally. Okay, So we are just adding details now. Okay. Here's the most important part. Is, okay. I'll transparency. I teach art. Okay. It have thought of Olivia years. I'm not a science teacher. However, I think I'm saying this bright. Okay, when I'm talking about, I'm now going to start adding details such as the stamen, the enters, those little in-between filler parts of the flowers. Yeah, please do not live in my accent. I am trying my best here. But if I get it wrong, That's what you got. Google for. Google it. Google it. But I think I do have inquiry. The anthers, the filament are the same and the pistol of the long interior part of the flower or the lily. These are the, all the little details that we're going to start adding to our flower using our chalk pastel now. And I'm so excited about these because now you have the freedom and the autonomy to do more so what you please in these areas and finding the right colors, chalk pastels, you may use some light tones, you may use some mid tones. You may even decide to use some darker tones depending on the area that you're in. So it's totally up to you now as Jacques and see Seo laying down over the little paintbrush. Yeah, I'll be using her on and off once again to kinda ad and go back and fill in some detail parts. But again, I'm not I'm not the science teacher here, not Bill Nye, the Science Guy, But I am Heather or MSI sportsmen as my students to call me or miss. I am that so I'm gonna do the best that I can to help you guys. But if you notice, I'm taking dislike the tip ends of the chalk pastels and adding just those little small details, a little specks on the petals, and then going back over them with my paintbrush in kinda like a rounded direction. Okay. You can also feel free. Again, don't forget to use your other tools at this point. Use what you want to. Okay, what has worked for you? We're at the final stages. So if the blending stump is worked, do that. Okay. Now, I remember when I talked about that glowing effect or that light effect. Here's what I'm doing. I pulled a totally different light tone from my chalk pastel box. If you notice, that tone that I pull is almost like a light blue. And I'm just kinda leaning get in here amongst my background in some of the outer edge. Yeah. Look at that. Look at that. I'm Larry it again on top of the dark tongue. And it's giving this glowing effect. Check this out. Y'all looking me. Yeah. So awesome. I'm so excited about is oh, my goodness. Yeah. Yeah. We did this. 9. Outro: So how do you feel? Because you just can't. You just finish creating your shot past Lily, seamlessly blending it with the help of myself and your creative self. How do you feel? You should feel awesome. Okay, It took a lot of hard work to do and I'm so proud of you. And it was an honor to be your facilitator, your teacher, and getting you to that goal, okay? You blended your light tones, you blend into your mid tones and dark tones. You learned details, go back and refine things and fine tune stuff and you just done a beautiful job with it. And I'm so very proud of you. And you should be proud of yourself as well. If anything. It's definitely been rewarding for me to teach this to you guys. So this is how we grow as artists and this is how we grow as people. So I want you guys to really just have fun. Nobody else can do it for, you know, make sure you post your, your beautiful art pieces in the project gallery. I want to see them. Your classmates want to see them. I want to leave good feedback for you guys. They want to leave good feedback. Also, it just helps me to see like did I do a good job teaching is, do I need to go back and refine something if you truly enjoy my class, please leave me overview on Skillshare. So other people can experience the same joy in learning that you did as well. Follow me on Instagram at H, that sportsmen are our personal artwork and my journey into becoming a full-time or in a pleasure, I look forward to teaching many more classes on Skillshare. Thank you all so much for joining me. Alright. See you get that will go on.