About Christine Kane

Christine Kane is a pastel and watercolor artist who is inspired by the Midwest landscape and it’s seasons. To find new ideas for her paintings, she hikes in the forest preserves during all seasons.

Christine began drawing at an early age. She focused her education on art and has a degree in Graphic Design. She is continuing her studies and is currently pursuing a degree in Natural Resources.

Translating weather is also evident in her work. “Weather makes a landscape painting come to life. How I love to show leaves blowing in the Autumn time, snow falling in winter, or a beautiful thunderstorm approaching in my summer paintings.”

Christine finds God’s handwork in all aspects of nature and tries to translate her awe and reverence in her artwork. Never disappointed, she relies on His creation for inspiration.

To learn more about Christine and to view more of her work, please visit her site by following the link below:

==> http://letspaintnature.com/

Christine’s work can be viewed at the LaGrange Art Gallery

Let’s Paint November Sunset!

What is it about November that I like so much? Could it be the calm before the storm (peace before holiday chaos)? Could it be the de-clutter of leaves on the trees, providing a sort of de-clutter in my mind? Is it the warmth of the sweater that surrounds me or the first sip of hot chocolate? I’m sure it is a combination of all of these and many more. I love autumn even when it sheds its happy colors and puts on a more subdue garment. At this time of year, the grays and browns dominate, but you can still catch some exciting colors in the sky.

So let’s enjoy this time of the season by making a pastel painting of a November Sunset! This is going to be 100% pastels from start to finish. It won’t be too hard and you will have sooooooooo much fun in the process!

Step 1

I am using a sheet of Kitty Wallis Museum Grade 18×12 pastel paper. It feels like sand paper. You can get this wet and apply an undercoat, which we will do in a few steps. I made a rough sketch with a pastel pencil, it doesn’t matter what color, it will disappear in the end.

Step 2

Holy Hot Tamales!!! This is a fun step, well all of them are fun, but this step will connect you to your child like self buried deep, deep, down somewhere. Don’t worry about the bold dark color. This will be painted over. In this step and the next few, we are just laying down color. I am using Rembrandt pastels. Scribble in most of the sky using a dark pink, a little red and some orange. Repeat the same colors in the water.

Step 3

Now take a medium blue and scribble in the rest of the sky and some of the water. Take a dark blue and scribble in where the distant trees are just above the horizon.

Step 4

Look Mom! Look what I brought home from 1st grade! Hahahahahaha. In this step scribble in the land with a dark maroon/brown. Wait until you see what comes next!

Step 5

Now we are going to spread it around. Pour a small amount of turpentine (smells) or turpenoid (doesn’t smell) in a cup and wet a 2? bristle brush. Dab on a paper towel to get excess off. You do not want it sopping wet. Start on the lightest color and touch the pastel spreading it around with small sweeping strokes. Clean brush before you move to the next color.

That’s what I’m talking about! Yessssss. Spread it around now! This is an undercoat. Don’t worry how obnoxious it looks. We are going to apply another top coat of soft pastels. Only a tiny amount of this color will show through. Let this dry completely.

Step 6

We will start at the top and work our way down. When your undercoat is dry, take a light pink pastel and paint in the sky. I hate saying exact color names or numbers on my step by steps. I do not want people to run out and buy more art supplies because they think they don’t have the “right” color. All colors are right. All colors are usable. Use what you have. When I’m determining what color to use on top of an undercoat, I just use a shade lighter.

Paint in the sun colors using a lighter orange and a touch of dark yellow. Paint the lower half of the sky with a light blue.

Step 7

With your finger and a light touch, blend the two colors with a sweeping strokes.

Step 8

Using the light blue sky color, fill in the water near the horizon. Take a medium blue pastel and paint in the distant trees. Using your finger blend the trees upward towards the sky. Looking good so far.

Step 9

Now I realized my maroon land color was not dark enough, so I’m adding a very dark blue Unison pastel color. The darkest Rembrandt is not really dark enough for me. Unison pastels can get very, very dark. I also painted more of the water with the light sky blue color.

Step 10

This is a close up of the land where I’m going to describe how to paint the dried grasses. Now because the light technically is coming from the back and it’s the beginning of evening, the grasses will not have much color. Using a dark blue pastel pencil, make dots and lines on top of the water just above the land. This represents cattails in the distance. Next take a gray-purple pastel and make lines for grass on the land. I like to be messy about it. Neat is boring.

Step 11

Take a lighter pastel, like a light gray-brown and make some grasses in the front. Take your dark blue pastel or pastel pencil and make some tiny grass sticks here and there in the very front, some put right in the water. Oh this is coming along nicely!

Step 12

Using a dark blue pastel pencil, paint in the trees. I thinned them out from the picture. I didn’t want them to be too distracting. After my trees were established I went over them with a dark brown color. Working on the water, take the same sky colors and paint the foreground. Don’t forget the nice orange color of the sunset. Make sure you add the tree trunks reflecting in the water.

Step 13 Final

Add more blue sky color to the water in the foreground. Because the wind was so strong, it was breaking up the reflection in the water, so paint some more like blue and pink in the water.

Lastly, let the sun kiss the tree trunks and limbs by adding some hot colors; hot pink and orange work nice. Finished!

“Sweet November Sunset”
pastel,18×12

If interested in purchasing the original, click here to see availability.

I hope you enjoyed this free step by step pastel painting demonstration. I am so very honored that God has blessed me to be able to share this with you.

About Faith

Graphite Pencil, Charcoal Pencil and Pastels Artist

Hello! My name is Faith Te. When I was 16, a great desire to capture nature and the people around me started my passion for drawing. I began to look at drawing not just as a hobby but something which I wanted to do all my life.

I practiced every day and for many hours since. I taught myself to draw by experimenting with different techniques and materials and through helpful tips and advice from other artists.

Initially, charcoal and graphite pencils were the only mediums I used. When I began working in color, I used pastels, and more recently, oils. My main subjects are portraits but I also enjoy doing many other subjects including still life, landscapes and flowers, especially orchids.

I devote many hours and lots of attention to detail into each and every one of my drawings or paintings. My ultimate goal is not only to achieve detail and realism but also to capture the life and character of my subjects.

Thank you for your interest in my artwork. I sincerely hope you enjoy your stay here on our web site. Please visit again soon!

Please take a moment to visit Faith’s Website and Blog to learn more about her and her products and services.

Her Website: http://www.artisticrealism.com/

Her Blog: http://www.artisticrealism.com/artstudio/

Portrait of Ron Hontz

step-by-step pastel painting by faith te

Medium: Soft Pastels
Paper: Canson Mi-Teintes — Terre de Sienne
Size: 28 × 36 cm (11″ × 14″)

(Please click images for larger views)

Stage 1

The outline was initially drawn on a separate sheet of paper until it was accurate.

Then I used a sheet of paper covered with Burnt Umber soft pastel powder to transfer the outline to my final pastel paper. I used the textured side of Canson Mi-Teintes.

Stage 2

Here, I started to work on the underpainting for the skin tones using light Yellow Ochre, Burnt Umber, Permanent Red, and white soft pastels. I then blended with my fingers to achieve soft and gradual tones.

Started to work on the hat. I used black for the general tones and light Ultramarine Deep and a little white for the highlights.

I am using Rembrandt soft pastels and, occassionally, the harder Van Gogh square pastels for some of the details and edges.

Stage 3

Worked on the hat some more.

I have now added some greens and blues to the darker areas of the skin.

I have also started painting in the shirt using Ultramarine Deep. Ultramarine Light and white were used for the lighter areas.

Black was used as underpainting for the background.

Stage 4

Continued working on the skin tones — darkening shadows and adding highlights. At this point, I am adding more detail and also paying closer attention to getting the likeness.

I have now darkened the eyes, added eyebrows, and worked a little on the lips and gums.

I decided to give the portrait a full background and randomly applied various greens.

Stage 5

Continued working on the head as well as the clothes. I have added folds to his shirt to give it a more natural look. Orange was used for the shirt’s shadow areas.

I wanted to give the portrait a more complex background, so I added more greens which I then blended lightly with my fingers to produce a “blurry trees” effect.

Stage 6: Finished

I worked some more on the teeth and lips. Also, some of the hightlights were further lightened and the shadows darkened to give the portrait more contrast. And after a few other finishing touches, the portrait is finished.

I hope you have enjoyed this pastel portrait study. Thank you for reading.

About Sandrine Pelissier

I grew up in France but have been living in Canada for the last 12 years, I am currently located in North Vancouver and work from a studio on Pemberton Avenue.

Watercolor is my medium of choice because of the unique way it allows me to render light. The transparency of this medium can make it look like the painting is lit from behind and the light is shining through the paper In my portraits, I like to tell stories about the people around me. I am very interested in childhood fantasy or fairy tales (I wish it would snow Flowers, Hair Balloon, Georgia, the Spanish dress and the Eclectus Parrot). I also like to induce a dialogue with the viewer in some paintings dealing more with introspection and mood (Mixed, In the studio).

Those portraits are not about likeness or knowing the people that are being painted, as I see my models as actors in a movie, they are the faces that will allow me to tell a story or to show emotions. Those faces are a source of endless fascination and I find the subtlety that can be achieved with watercolor well suited to the complexity of the human face.

My technique involves the accumulation of many transparent layers of watercolor. Then I like to incorporate mixed media in the background, work sometimes with some contouring. I also sometimes like to add some drawing on top of the painting or some graphic elements…

Sandrine’s Website

Sandrine’s Blog

Visit Sandrine’s Print Shop by Clicking the Banner Below:

Road Trip, Acrylic and mixed media on canvas and prezi presentations

(Click Images For Larger View)

Road Trip: mixed media on canvas

This is my latest painting on canvas, still working from a series of pictures I took during our summer road trip to Alberta.

I published some of those pictures in a Red Bubble Gallery here.

For this painting I used mostly Acrylic and pastels, with a bit of alcohol, medium, fixative, crayon, pencil.

This is the picture I worked from. The colors are pretty muted but I liked the composition with the posts and mountains . I also liked how the road gets you in the picture.

I started with a yellow-orange underpainting in acrylic, then made a rough drawing with a white crayon.

Here I started applying blocks of colors. The drawing in wax crayon act as a resist and stays visible under the layers of Acrylic paint.

I add a layer of white acrylic on the road but find it too heavy.

So I spray lightly with water

And apply a layer of paper towel on the still wet paint.

When I take off the paper towel, I have nice patterns on the road.

I add some layers of diluted white liquid acrylic to the sky area, in a watercolor manner. Spraying Alcohol to add some texture.

Adding more colored layers to the fields and background mountains.

Scrubbing of some paint with a sponge.

Adding more acrylic layers, and painting the poles. I am drawing the wires with a pen.

I now spray the painting with water and will scrub off paint again to add more depth and complexity to my colors

I now wait for the paint to dry and now work with dry pastels. The advantage is that I can try different colors and wash them away if I don’t like it.

Adjusting the final details with acrylic, once the pastel has been fixed with spray fixative.

About Eric Wilson

Eric Wilson has established himself as one of Britain’s leading wildlife artists, a multi-award winner whose paintings are now widely collected throughout the world. His artistic ability was evident from his earliest schooldays; “Eric has an artistic talent way beyond his years” wrote his art teacher in 1967.

As a child of Scottish parentage, Eric would spend his formative years roaming the highland mountains of Scotland where his lifelong love of wild places was born. It was natural and inevitable that Eric would combine his talent with his love of wildlife and become a wildlife artist.

Eric has exhibited widely in London, Germany and the United States, exhibiting at the prestigious Florida Wildlife and Western Art Exposition and The National Exhibition of Wildlife Art where his work has won several awards. His paintings have appeared in magazines and books such as “The Best of Wildlife Art” and “Keys to Painting Fur and Feathers”, by North Light Books.

Visit Eric’s Websites:

http://www.ericwilsonwildlifeart.com/

Wildlife Art Demonstration: A step by step guide

Step 1

I wasn’t taking this picture too seriously at this stage, as I was still experimenting with pastels and wasn’t sure if the Schmeike sandpaper surface I was drawing on was capable of delivering fine results. I had sketched the cub out loosely on paper and then transferred it to the Schmeike pastel paper. I was using pastel pencils and doing some smudging with my fingers, the face started to take shape and so I decided to continue.

Step 2

I liked the way the ‘tooth’ of the pastel paper held onto the pastel and felt confident to build up layers of colour. The eyes are always the key to a cat portrait and I was happy to see that I could ‘glaze’ over with a light magenta to show some reflection giving life and the illusion of wetness to the eyes. It was important not overdo this however, as I had to bear in mind that the eyes were actually in the shade and not reflecting direct sunlight. With that in mind a magenta was used in preference to a bright white which would have been a mistake. I was beginning to spread an undercoat of raw sienna colour across the body by this stage.

Step 3

Over the raw sienna, which was done with a ‘wash’ of softer pastel, I started to build up the direction of the fur with darker strokes. Direction is all darker strokes. Direction is all important, as when it is done with a careful understanding, it gives a clear shape and solidity to the whole body. A framework upon which to build.

Step 4

It is believed that lions used to have spots much like leopards, but as jungles gave way to open plains the spots gradually disapeared. You can still see them if you look closely though, particularly in young remember with this painting. By this stage I knew I had a winner on my hands and had begun to draw in the log and some loose suggestions of a background. You will notice that I had left the edges of the fur unfinished at this stage, particularly around the top of the head and ears as I knew I would have a lot of rubbing and blending to do for the background and there would be no point in finishing the edges of the fur prior to this being done.

Step 5

I’m nearing completion by this stage, I’ve blended the soft greys of the log with soft pastels and have used charcoal for the darker lines. Realism in paintings can be helped by the most subtle of things, like being mindful of the fact that colours reflect onto nearby objects. With this in mind I’ve added some warmer ‘lion tones’ to the upper log near to the cubs body. It all helps create the illusion of reality.

Painting Finished

The finished pastel painting. Lots of loose smudging in the background contrasts with the sharp rendering and bolder colouring of the subject to create the illusion of depth. Grasses have been added for extra interest and to provide the oppertunity to show more glowing sunlight. The smoothness of the sun bleached log contrasts nicely with the fur of the Cubs body. Its all about surfaces and textures complimented by their differences and yet all working harmoniously together to create something that looks real.

I was very pleased with this picture and amazed at how effective pastels can be. I love their immediacy. There is no time wasted ‘off picture’ mixing colours, you simply pick up the colour you need and use it. I found that very refreshing after years of complex mixing with oil colours and was able to give 100% concentration to the picture itself and to finish it within a week as opposed to the month it would have taken using oil paints. I dont use fixative as it spoils the colours.

About The Artist

Carol Santora, PSA, has loved animals of all kinds since she was a child, and remembers always wanting to be an artist. She had numerous well-used Jon Gnagy drawing kits and would copy pictures from magazines and sketch things around her home.

Santora (BFA, summa cum laude, Framingham State University) began her formal art training in 1983, while working as a registered nurse. One thing she wanted to learn to paint desperately was her dog, Flossie. After that first successful portrait, Santora realized she had a special talent and passion for animal and wildlife portraiture. Over the next 20 years, Santora would explore oil and watercolor painting before settling on soft pastel as her perfect medium. She painted landscapes and still-lifes, studied human portraiture and the figure, but the animals kept calling to her and appearing in her work.

Santora’s intimate portraits are insightful interpretations that express her passion for animals with excitement and energy by pushing the boundaries of color. She visits farms, rescues and wildlife areas in New England and out West to study and photograph her subjects. She takes hundreds of photographs and spends countless hours watching the animals that inspire her paintings. Her work is grounded in representation, but she is not bound by that. As she works, a completely realistic depiction gives way to a more artistic, contemporary rendering that serves her colorist and expressive purposes….

Learn more about Carol and see more of her work at her Website:

http://carolsantora.com/

Pastel Painting Demo of a Snow Leopard

The following step by step pastel demonstration of a snow leopard in soft (dry) pastel by Carol Santora, PSA, includes completing a Drawing and Sketch, the underpainting, the actual painting in pastel and final adjustments.

Carol Santora, PSA, is an award-winning, contemporary animal artist living in Kennebunk, Maine, specializing in animal and wildlife paintings and pet portraits of cows, horses, sheep, farm and domestic animals, dogs and cats, the big cats, moose, bear in pastel and acrylic.

Step 1 – Drawing/Sketch

I observed and photographed this female snow leopard, Cloe, during my recent photo shoot at Big Cat Rescue in Florida. The snow leopard is one of the most elegant and elusive of all the great cats. It is very rare to encounter one in the wild. There are only an estimated 4,500 to 7,000 of these big cats left in the wild.

“The snow leopard is an endangered big cat that inhabits the rugged and mountainous terrain of Central Asia and the Himalayan region. It is currently threatened by hunting for the illegal wildlife trade and revenge killings by herders; habitat loss; and diminished food supply.” WorldWildlife.org

This leopard shyly, inch by inch, crept from her cave and intently stared at me, to check me out.

"Step 1 - Drawing" graphite on paper, 24"x18"

Step 2 – Underpainting

I transferred my drawing onto Wallis museum grade sanded pastel paper with a 3H graphite pencil. Working upright on an easel, I blocked in the darks with a dark blue hard pastel, then sprayed the sheet while laying it flat, with water. Once the image is dry, I can begin adding color.

As you can see, I have blocked in my middle tone areas with NuPastels, a harder soft pastel stick. I work back and forth from one area to another, from mid-tone darks to mid-tone lights building up the image in my preliminary base colors. I usually wait until closer tot he end of the painting to put in the eyes, however for demonstartion purposes, I have painted them sooner.

Another note… I routinely tint my Wallis paper with cadmium red light or cadmium orange acrylic ink before beginning a wildlife pastel painting, however, with Cloe, I wanted to her on the white background.

"Step 2 - Underpainting"

Step 3 – Painting

I finished blocking in the background darks very loosely and then layered lighter colors on top in various shades over selected areas to create the rock colors and texture. I did not want to overwork the rock den.

I also varied the pressure of my pastel stick and used softer pastels. I stepped back often to see my work. Lastly, I added the darkest darks and the lightest lights very sparingly to make the cat pop.

I will look at this now in my studio for several days to make adjustments if necessary.

"Step 3 - painting"

Step 4 – Adjustments

I left this painting hanging in my studio for a few days and made some adjustments including darkening the body at it recedes into the cave, refining the paws and rocks. I will continue to make minor changes if necessary, but at this point am very happy with it and can settle down to titling it!

"On Alert" soft pastel, 24"x18"