About Gerard Mineo

Gerard is a 50 year old artist from France and has been interested in art since 1983. After studying architecture for 4 years, he decided it wasn’t his calling in life, so he devoted his life to painting portraits.

Gerard fell in love with Pastels when he was 16 years old after seeing the work of an Italian portrait artist. After several years of training from photos and live models, Gerard put all his effort into becoming the amazing professional artist that you see today.

You can learn more about Gerard by visiting his website at the Address Below:

http://www.pastel-portraits.com/index.htm

Step by Step Pastel Drawing Demonstration -Portrait of Robert De Niro

‘This is a step by step demonstration of my personal progression in the making of a portrait from a photograph. Forget all you know about oil painting technique if you have some, pastel painting steps are totally different. You can work the way you like, you don’t have to care about oil constraints. One rule, work the very highlights at the end, and sometimes, over the sprayed artwork. Beware, unlike oil painting, It is not easy to cover very dark areas with light colors. As information, I give the closest Rembrandt (R), Sennelier (Sen), Vang (V) or Quentin Latour (QL) , reference for any color I use when it is possible, to allow artists to use their traditional palette, but it will be only an approximation. I remind you, most of the colors I use are home made.

Start with a sketch on a 18′ x 25′ velour paper with a Koh-I-Noor Sepia hell lead. It is very important to catch the most likeness possible at this stage so you ‘ll just concentrate yourself on the colors and value in the next steps. Work slightly, no heavy strokes that would mark the paper.	With the flesh tone 2, (~R.339.5+R.409.8) or (~Sen.71) Or (~QL.69) cover all the skin area and start the background around the face with a grey-green tone (~R.709.7). You’ll always work the background and the portrait at the same time, it is important for a constant evaluation of the color balance.
State the shadows and the transition halftones first with Light Shadow tone (~QL.122). Don’y worry with details here. Use a dark grey-blue (~R.727.3) for the jacket. White area, here the collar, will be filled at the end to keep it clean.	Accentuate the shadows in the darkest parts of the face, and state the base for the beard with Medium Shadow tone (~R.408.3+R.538.7) . Mark also the hair root that will make the transition to black hair. You can darken the eyes at this step if you want.
Here, warm the central part of the face with Orange tone (~R.411.8). Don’t cover evenly, just let the basic tone come out here and there. This will avoid a stiff like painting.	The lower part of the face is alway cooler than the rest, especially on men’s portraits. Add a touch of Neutral1 (~R.538.7+R.709.7)on the beard and on the eyes’s shadow to cool it and on shadowed area of the neck. Here I have added a touch in the background as well.
I go on cooling on a larger area of the lower part of the face, up to the cheeks, suggesting the beard beneath the surface of the skin and slightly over the eyes and the temple’s hair with the Neutral tone2 (~R.538.8+R.709.7). Using the same tone, mark the light shadows on the shirt, add some transitions in the background using a light brown (~R.409.8)	Using a Koh-I-Noor Sepia dark lead, key in the darks to define some details. You can start showing some hair at its root and on the beard and mustache.
Now state the evenly lightened areas of the picture, use Flesh tone 2 (~R.339.5+R.409.9) to state them. Notice how this bring some relief to the tip of the nose. Add some spots of blue-green (~R.640.8+R.709.8) in the background to contrast with the overalls warm flesh tone.	Before going any further with the face, lets paint the hair. Use Brown tone (~R.409.3) for the base and add a touch of dark grey-blue (~R.727.3), same thing for the jacket.
Using black tone, darken slightly the shadows areas and the jacket, mark the hair in the beard and mustache and keep some light part as a base for up coming grey hair.	Since the previous step, the background need some stronger values. Here use a dark grey-green (~R.709.3) over and on the left shoulder to fade it with the background. Add some previous colors to the background.
Unlike Oil painting, each time you add a layer, you cover partially the one underneath and don’t mix with it, so at this point, we need to enhance the previous Orange tone and the new beard area.	With the Light tone (~R.409.9), state the highlights all over the face. Give some details to the ear, the forehead and lines here and there by adding a dark reddish tone with a Conte stick #2453. We must see the blood color through the thinest part of the ear.
Now, put the grey hair, use a 1 inch edge of a very light grey-green (~R.709.9), you can break your stick in 2 half circles to get a sharp edge. You must draw the hair in full strokes, don’t hesitate or stop in the middle of a reflection and draw again, this would ruin the effect. Avoid the use of the pastel tip, remember, use an edge. Add black on beard, mustache, eyes, eyebrows. Use the Conte Pierre Noire for the thinest details.	Draw on the grey hair on the beard and the mustache, here you can use a sharpened Carre Conte white 2b. Add also some pure white hair on temples. Darken the background on the right side with black and the jacket down to the bottom limit of the portrait.Before going to the next step, I modified the left eye a little bit, and darkened the eye-sockets.
Close-up of the previous step to see more details, we are almost done.The noze has to be better defined, the area between the eyebrows too.	Lets reajust some values first…
	Here is the final step after a lot of small touches around the eyes,the forehead, the bridge of the noze. The up lip was darkened. I removed some grey hair from the beard, added some blue highlights in the background and their reflection on the skin to fade the right face’s edge in it. This bring some depth to the artwork. I sprayed the portrait in several slight layers. Just e-mail me if you want to know more about a specific step, or about my pastels.. Depending upon you requests, I will put some more lessons. If you are interested in video lessons, just let me know. There are on the way. A last thing, I apologize for my average english. Thank you.

You can learn about Gerard by visiting his website at the Address Below:

http://www.pastel-portraits.com/index.htm

This demonstration is courtesy of Dan Gray.

Visit his website to learn more about him and to view more of his work

Cherry Bomb Still Life Demo

I was out in the forest with an Oldsmobile but the rain started to fall so back into the studio with a still life for rest of the day

I am using tobbacco coloured canson, I work all over including the background

Warming up, working from light to dark

Warming up the base and adding more blossom, refining detail

Lowering the contrast and working the background

Working all over on detail and values, cooling the background to try and make the blossoms jump

18″ x 20“

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

Watercolor and Pastel Painting Demonstration – Let’s Paint Winter Woods!

About three years ago I went hiking at Bull Frog Lake, right before evening in January. I came upon a scene that made me pause for a moment and fall in love. Winter’s intense setting sun was casting long shadows from the trees in the woods. Right on que it seemed, three crows in the distance began to caw. I almost wanted to cry. Call me a fool for nature, but West Nile almost eliminated all the crows in my area and I haven’t heard that beautiful, “CAW, CAW, CAW”, in a very long time. They are my 2nd favorite bird in the world.

So here we go! Let’s remember that moment forever by painting the winter woods…

Step 1: I am using an Ampersand Pastelbord 16×20. This is going to be a watercolor and pastel painting. With charcoal, make a simple sketch before you paint. Remember the 3rd’s rule…great composition happens in thirds. Notice my horizon line is 1/3 from the top. My deer tracks will be 1/3rd from the left.

Here is my reference photo. I had it enlarged and printed at 8×10. Notice I have a clear plastic cover on it. This will help you greatly! I am a very messy painter and get junk all over the place (and I don’t care…it’s part of the process), if I didn’t protect the picture it would have been destroyed.

Step 2: Turn your board upside down. This will help the paint flow down with gravity. Spray the sky with clean water. Using watercolor paints, paint Naples yellow in the sky (remember we are upside down so it is at the bottom). Next, with a mixture of ultramarine blue and burnt umber, paint some distant trees using up and down strokes.

Step 3: When dry, paint some far trees using ultramarine blue and a lot of water so the mixture is not dark. Paint closer trees using a darker mixture of ultramarine blue and burnt umber.

Here is a close-up of the distant trees. I love how the watercolors spread out at the edges representing rough bark…YES! Effortless painting!

Step 4: When completely dry, turn your board right side up. In this step I am just laying down big blocks of color using watercolors. I am only using cobalt blue, ultramarine blue and alizarin in different mixtures. You might be thinking, “Are you nuts? Those colors are so dark!” Don’t worry, most of this will be covered by pastels.

Step 5: With sap green, ultramarine blue, and alizarin crimson, make a black mixture and paint the closest trees. Try to vary their sizes. That took me a long time to accomplish in my early years of painting. Your brain just wants to make trees, so after a while you realise they are all the same thickness. NO! In nature they are all different.

Step 6: We are done with watercolors. When everything is dry, start painting with pastels. I used a medium Unison purple for the tracks and shadows and a medium blue for snow.

Step 7 Final: Make layers and layers of snow, using three different light blues. I also used light purple for the snow as well. On the tree trunks I painted spots of deep dark purple and fuchsia. You can’t really see it, but it is there. I also painted tiny spots of yellow in the snow to reflect the setting sun.

Don’t worry if you do not paint with pastels. You can use the same principles to paint with oils. It’s all about layer upon layer.

“Before Dusk in Deep Snow”

16×20

This painting will be on display at the LaGrange Art Gallery March 2010. I hope you enjoyed this step by step painting demonstration on how to paint a winter scene in the woods using watercolors and pastels.

THE SUBJECT

For this second pastel drawing demo, I used the picture of two pink orchids highly sunlit from the top left. The two orchid flowers protrude from the background which is composed of elongated leaves rising from the ground. The lower background is shadowed and makes the orchids stand out even more with color and shape contrast.

THE MATERIALS

Again, for this demonstration I used a 64-color set of Mungyo soft pastels (27 mm x 8 mm) and a sheet of Strathmore Pastel paper (11” x 14”) of somehow pale yellow color. This type of paper requires at least 5 mm sticks or pastel pencils to be able to fill the texture more efficiently and render details in realistic drawings.

THE PALETTE

I did not find much problem matching the colors, tones and shades on this one with my Mungyo colors but a set with more color gradations and shades is recommended.

THE DRAWING PROCESS

The following sections do not follow an exact step by step process but rather stages which contain different steps to work with drawing and coloring areas. My intention here in this second pasted drawing demo is to show more pigment addition without saturating or bloating the paper with colors that causes cloudy patches. I recommend shaking your paper from time to time to avoid the accumulation of dust in the lower parts which contaminates the already colored areas, especially the light colored areas. My expertise with soft pastel colors is not extensive so this is actually part of my pastel drawings self-teaching and learning that I publish on the Web.

STAGE 1

With my base drawing carefully and precisely drawn, I begin to match some of the lightest shades in the orchid flowers. This first layer is to slightly fill in areas which define the main subjects and to cover paper texture. White areas have been indicated. Some dark hues have also been added to the orchid. Lemon yellow and yellow ochre are also visible. As I pointed out in my first pastel demo, at this starting stage, it is important to start by just hovering the pastel sticks over the paper without applying much pressure.

STAGE 2

After putting in some coloring from Stage 1, I focus on the lower orchid and start blocking in its shape against the background area which appears a little undefined and blurred. This is yet with the lightest of the various brown and green tones of which the dark background is made. From here I extend outwardly but not far outside of the orchid enclosing area. Here I verify and constrain the orchid’s shape because my base drawing is already concealed.

STAGE 3

Following you can notice that I haven’t moved much farther from the drawing of the lower orchid. The orchid itself shows some loose colors which will need further blending and definition. The dark areas in the background have been strengthened to make the orchid contours stand out. A mosaic of related colors is noticeable which I will later fuse to produce the necessary tonalities. Some leaves have tentatively been drawn with their lightest sunlit or shadowed tones.

STAGE 4

From here I have extended to the left and right but still not much to the bottom and top areas. Light tones first for both light and dark areas to progressively obtain the right gradation and blending. Little by little, step by step and area by area the background becomes apparent and integrates with the foreground. I advance on the top orchid by filling in more areas and defining tones. Not much pigment is yet added, just an overall layer without saturating any specific area. Don’t despair on ending one main subject yet, completing it later as we advance is more rewarding and we can save time on correcting mistakes that can’t be undone otherwise.

STAGE 5

Next, I have covered the bottom with dark blue (ultramarine blue) but it will require some black to achieve the darkest hue. The leaves in the background are continuously and progressively filled with hues that intermingle with each other. Some dark ochre becomes apparent over the green areas but it will be downgraded as I darken these areas. More polishing and strengthening of colors and shades will be left for the last stages to achieve a thorough application of pigments and overall balance of color and composition as well as contrast.

STAGE 6

In advancing to the leaves at the top, the colors need to be some kind of sap green and hookers green using the light shades to match the sunlit areas. Some lemon yellow is also added on the edges of the orchids’ leaves. The upper orchid is not yet well defined or constrained against the background. I do this later as I advance to the upper half. Here, pink shades from the orchid; and pale green and lime green from the leaves are complementary colors whose interplay becomes apparent at the end of the drawing. At this stage, the background appears more integrated and less chaotic than the previous stage.

STAGE 7

To this point, after several days and paused working, an overall layer of the drawing surface has been completed. The only uncovered area is where I will put my signature. The background at the top has been filled with dark blue and some scattered black. A lot of polishing and color restating, shading, blending and texturing will ensue to help define overall color balance and contrast. Edges will be enhanced where needed with contrasting colors and shapes. In the lower background area, dark ochre predominates which will subsequently become the lighter areas when darker tones are added over. More retouching will be required to eliminate color and composition inconsistencies in the drawing.

STAGE 8

At this stage we have a pre-finished drawing. I have added my signature and the upper orchid has been mostly constrained and redefined proportionally. More time has been invested in polishing, saturating and darkening the background. From my experience in photographing orchids, orchid colors can be highly tinted and others quite pale. These contrasting colors can provide interesting results in drawing or painting orchids in any media. Orchid’s leaves, on the other hand, are almost devoid of any texture except for longitudinal divisions that produce certain color changes with light.

FINAL WORK

After much more reworking, dedication and effort on trying to achieve a more realistic approach, I treated every area separately and rendered them to the utmost. The paper texture, however, did not allow for further smoothing of the surfaces and some stippling may be noticeable. This can be overcome by using finer textured paper and trying different pastel sizes, brands and quality.

Please feel free to follow this pastel drawing process to create your own drawing and self-teaching. The process does not start if you don’t take the courage to grab your pastels and start to apply colors over the paper. It emphasizes the application of pastel from small amounts to successive layering of pigments as necessary and allowed by the drawing surface. Working this way will create more confidence in the artist and the ability and capability to handle more colors, hues, shades and tonalities to enhance pastel drawing with time. Until another art demo, best wishes in your everyday art making and take the most advantage of your pastel drawing experience. Please send me your comments to email attached below.

WEBSITE: http://www.georgemax.co.nr/

EMAIL: georgemaxart@hotmail.com

Pastels are available in a wide range of exciting colors and materials from soft pastels and oil pastels, to pastel pencils and crayons. You could literally spend a lifetime exploring this versatile and exciting medium.

TYPE OF PASTELS

Pastels are available in a wide range of types and this is to accommodate the different tastes artists have. These various types of pastels are all created using similar pigments, only they are composed of different quantities or kinds of binding materials.

Soft Pastels

Soft pastels are the original form of this medium and probably the most popular. Soft pastels are composted of pure pigment, chalk and a gum solution. They produce rich colorful lines and are more often than not, looked upon as painting mediums more than drawing mediums. Soft pastels can produce subtle lines or can be built up into rich impastos. It provides the artist with the best of both worlds essentially. Of all the various types of pastels, soft pastels are available in the widest range of colors. They can be purchased individually or in sets.

Hard Pastels

Hard pastels, as the name implies, are hard and more suited for drawing and producing lines. Artists often use hard pastels and soft pastels together in the same drawing. The hard pastels are used to layout the drawing and the soft pastels are worked in over the hard. The hard pastels are then used again to finalize the drawing by adding in details. Hard pastels do not have the extensive range of color that soft pastels have. It is for this reason that you must utilize various optical color mixing techniques on your paper if you want to produce different colors.

Pastel Crayons

Pastel crayons are a hybrid medium of medium hardness that combine the characteristics of the hard and soft pastels. They are available in a limited range of colors when compared to soft pastels. Crayons are quite popular for artists that enjoy outdoor drawing as their convenient size makes them suitable for transport and their composition makes them less prone to breakage.

Pastel Pencils

Pastel pencils are very similar in composition to crayons only they are encased in wood in the form of a pencil and tend to be a bit softer than crayons. Pastel pencils are perfect for detailed work and also have the ability to be blended somewhat. They are available in roughly the same range of colors as crayons and are available as individual items or in sets.

Water soluble Pastels

These pastels are an ingenious invention because of their ability to be used both dry and wet. Obviously you can see the amazing possibilities with this kind of medium. You can lay down lines as you would any traditional drawing medium and then brush over these lines with water to create colorful watercolor like washes. These pastels are available individually or in sets and are available in a limited range of colors.

Oil Pastels

Oil pastels are quite different than other types of pastels in that they use oil as a binder rather than gum. Oil pastels are very sensitive to temperature and they will soften as you use them. They are versatile medium and can be used on a number of different supports including canvas, paper and board. Just like oil paints, oil pastels can also be used with turpentine opening up a whole new world of exciting techniques.