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 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 Winter Grasses!

Pastel Painting Tutorial by Christine Kane

There’s something wonderful about winter grasses. Could it be that bright warm golden glow? Could it be the way they sound bending in the wind? Could it be the way they poke out of the snow? Yes, all of these above make winter grasses so special. This picture was taken on a hike last winter in Spears Woods. Let’s get going and paint winter grasses in pastels with a watercolor underwash.

Step 1: I am using an 8×10 Ampersand Pastelbord. Take a charcoal pencil and make a quick sketch.

Step 2: Turn the board upside-down. We are going to paint the background with watercolors and we want the colors to blend. Gravity is going to pull the paint down, so use the lightest color first. Starting with the horizon line, paint manganese blue. In the middle paint with french ultramarine and at the bottom paint a mauve color.

Step 3: While the board is still wet, paint the distant trees by mixing burnt umber and french ultramarine blue watercolor paints. Start at the horizon line and paint downward making flicking stokes at the end. Don’t paint straight across, make a scalloped edge to represent various tree sizes. Dry the board with a hair dryer.

Step 4: After the board is dry turn it right side up. Now paint the bottom. I like to add color under my snow, so I used some blue on my palette and also alizarin crimson. Where the patches of grass will be, take your background tree color and paint spots in the snow. We are done with watercolors. Moving on to pastels….

Step 5: POW POW POW! Look how the pastel color almost jumps off the page! Awesome! I am using Rembrandt pastels; take a dark sky blue and start at the top. Don’t cover every little inch, let some of the purple watercolor wash show through. In the middle of the sky use a medium sky blue pastel and closer to the horizon, use a very light sky blue. Where the sky touches the top of the distant trees, go in and out, suggesting some branches.

Step 6: Now, I could have stopped at just a blue sky (the easy way out), but my picture has terrific altocumulus clouds and those clouds typically mean changing weather within a day and I want to capture that! Altocumulus clouds are not the easiest thing in the world to paint, but is easy going to move you up to the next level? Is easy going to challenge you? Will it make you a stronger artist?

No way, it will not.

We will always move forward no matter what challenges we face. We will not slide backwards. If we fail, we will learn what not to do next time and because we learned something, we can not fail. Do you see!?! You can not fail.

For the clouds, I am using a medium-light purple/gray pastel (see picture). Make small circular clouds in the sky. Space them out a bit so the blue of the sky shows through. Next take a light purple/gray pastel and paint the top and middle of each cloud. Finally, take the light blue pastel for the sky and paint the top of each cloud.

Here is how the sky turned out. Just a bunch of circular clouds and in the distance, horizontal lines. Nice.

Step 7: Take a dark blue pastel pencil and draw in some trees. The ones to the left are further back and will be behind the grasses. The one to the right is closer to the foreground.

Step 8: Paint some oak leaves. I used a dark blue pastel for the base color and then a dark burgundy pastel on top. If I don’t paint these dark colors first, the bright leaves will not show up. We need contrast.

Step 9: Paint a light burgundy pastel on the tree. Don’t cover the whole thing, let some dark spots show through.

Step 10: Now for those fantastic grasses! Just like the oak tree, I need contrast. If I started painting with a yellow grass color, the grasses would not pop out. I need something dark behind it. I took the same dark burgundy pastel that I used for the tree and painted in a patch of grass. Then I took the light burgundy pastel and made some thin sweeping lines. Using the lightest blue for the sky, I paint some snow on the bottom.

Step 11: Take a golden tan pastel and make some more sweeping lines over the burgundy grass. Now doesn’t that stand out? Looks great.

“Blazing Winter Grasses” 10×8 pastel

Step 12 Final: Make some more grasses using the same steps as before on the right side of the painting. Fill in the rest of the snow with medium and lightest blue pastel. To add some sparkle, paint a few oak leaves pure orange. Yesssssss!

I hope you enjoyed this free step-by-step pastel demonstration on how to paint winter grasses. Remember, if you try this yourself, you can upload your results on the Let’s Paint Nature Facebook page.

In the following step by step pastel drawing demonstration, Margaret Evans demonstrates, in easy to follow steps, how to draw flowers.  This is more of an impressionist style drawing than anything else, as Margaret is not interested in capturing every detail. Just a very colorful and loose impression of her subject.

She uses a bouquet of flowers for her subject.  Her goal is to create a colorful and fleeting impression of the flowers instead of an accurate reproduction.  The results are something quite beautiful and well worth watching.  This is a 3 part pastel drawing demo, so you will need to set apart some time to finish watching these videos.  I do hope you enjoy and learn a great deal about still life drawing using pastels.

Drawing Flowers With Pastels Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAO9R_WNWUI

Drawing Flowers With Pastels Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mXnD0MWHTM

Drawing Flowers With Pastels Part 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMIWmJcwWxo

A big thanks to Margaret Evans and the folks over at The Painting & Drawing Channel.  To see more excellent instructional videos like the above, please follow this link. Thanks for watching!

Here is a two part pastel drawing video by artist Colin Bradley. In this video tutorial, Colin demonstrates his process for creating flesh tones in his portraits.

Its important to note that every artist has his or her own way of doing things.  This process is by no means the only way to draw a portrait with pastels.  This is just Colin’s method.

Colin begins by adding a generous amount of white to his sketch.  Using a circular motion with his finger, he blends the white pastel right into the paper.

He then begins to lay in his other colors in layers, blending along the way and creating his lights and darks. He continues this process, using nearly a dozen different colors, until the drawing is complete.  The end result is a beautiful pastel portrait.  Draw this portrait along with Colin and see what you can come up with.  Enjoy!

Skin Tone Demonstration With Pastel Pencils

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUwdpT7FLRc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DwUCH27zG8

A big thanks to Colin Bradley for sharing this wonderful portrait drawing lesson.  You can learn more about him and  see more of  his videos over at his YouTube Page.

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