Technique of drawing with pastel pencils. Secrets of pastel painting techniques for beginning artists

How can a beginner painter learn to paint with oil and dry pastels? First of all, it is important to understand that the basis of the technique is close contact of hands with paper. The strokes applied to the canvas are softly shaded, creating a holistic and unique picture that surprises with its depth and richness. You can depict anything on canvas - from classics to impressionism.

History of technology

Dry pastel painting as an art form appeared back in the 15th century at the instigation of the famous artist and scientist Leonardo da Vinci. The master painted pictures with chalk from pure pigment. Many Renaissance artists also used a similar technique. For example, Maurice de La Tour, John Russell, Jean Etienne Lyotard, Engr. In combination with gouache or watercolor, chalk helped create stunningly vibrant landscapes and still lifes.

Types of pastels

It is difficult for a beginner to determine for himself which pastel is better for him - oil or dry. Therefore, drawing lessons for beginners necessarily begin with an introductory course, in which the master talks about the types of artistic material.

What kind of pastel is there?

Concentrated dry. Dry chalk is easily shaded and erased with an eraser, you can change the tonality of the lines and make clear strokes.

Oily. First of all, professionals work with her. The material requires refined technique.

Wax. Wax crayons are best for beginners. It’s easy to “adapt” to them; the pictures turn out bright and expressive.

What paper is best to draw with pastels on?

Pastels require a special textured surface that can hold paint pigments. Which paper is best for pastels is a controversial issue, but experienced painters recommend choosing sheets with a slight grain. Then the paintings will be “deep” and your work will be preserved for a long time.

Pastel drawing paper:

Mi-Teintes from Canson. Made from glued textiles, it has a neutral pH level and a soft, silky surface. You can draw on this paper with charcoal and chalk.

Engr. Pressed paper. It has a dense structure and is sold in a wide range of colors.

Velor and sandpaper. They are distinguished by a soft structural surface on which the pigment adheres well.

Sansfix. It is made from particles of cork tree bark and does not require the use of a fixative.

Charcoal. It is made from a special carbon composition and has a rough surface. Very convenient for pastel sketches.

Which side of paper should I use oil pastels on? Typically, artists use the smooth side, which is ideal for brush strokes. To work with dry pastels, velor paper or Mi-Teintes with a fabric structure are suitable.

It is more difficult to erase pastels from paper than pencil or charcoal. It is best to make corrections early in the drawing process. Excess pigment can be brushed off the surface of the canvas using a thick brush. We recommend getting a kneaded eraser - it will help lighten and carefully correct pastel and charcoal drawings. The stationery is inexpensive, removes dirt from tracing paper and film, has easy-to-clean rubber and does not smudge the drawing.

How to capture drawings

The second stage of learning the technique is to learn how to capture drawings. Crayons fall off when working. This can significantly affect the quality of the painting, since some colors are poorly absorbed by the paper. Fixing is sometimes the only way to preserve color brightness. Linear drawings that do not have layers can be treated on one side with a special aerosol or water from a spray bottle.

Additional tools for work

In addition to crayons, you will need additional tools for creativity: paper tape that is glued to the easel, cotton swabs for shading hard-to-reach places, a sharpener, stationery knives for pastel pencils, erasers for removing the pigment of crayons from paper, as well as wet wipes for cleaning your hands.

Pastel sketches should be done in a painterly manner; strokes should be applied not arbitrarily, but according to form. Then the work will differ in volume and expressiveness. It is important that the highlights fall on the main background. To do this, first apply a darker tone and blend it carefully, and then a lighter one.

I painted poppies in winter, during the holidays.
I was then ready to draw in pastels not a flawed landscape, but something adequate.
For this purpose, I dug into the people on ICQ to find out their favorite flowers. No one really inspired me, so I went to Google. When I asked for “flowers,” he gave me beautiful poppies... And I fell in love. Despite all my dislike for red... I decided that this would be the leitmotif of my new attempt at pastels. Moreover, I have excellent English paper in warm colors:

The quality of the photos is working, so I apologize in advance.

The first sheet of paper is red. Let's leave it there:

I don’t really know why I decided to choose red. But I decided to plunge into meditation in the hope of awakening my intuition, because there is even more of it here than in watercolors. Direct skin contact with color pigment - what could be more pleasant?...
What is required besides paper?
1. Pastel - I have 72 “Spectrum” colors and 12 “Gamma” colors. Cheap and cheerful. I'm afraid to even dream about "Unisson" and the like.
2. Applicators for shadows (can be seen in one of the previous posts). Strictly speaking, special shading is needed, but I have never seen them in my city. So we will use non-standard tools.
3. Fingers. I use the nameless one, and occasionally the middle one.
4. Wet wipes - periodically wipe dirty fingers so as not to stain the drawing.
5. A little plain paper, any kind - we will sprinkle pastel dust on it.
6. Well, where would I be without green tea from my favorite mug:

First of all, take a stationery knife, pastel chalk and make dust:

I didn’t really remember the colors, I typed them at random:

My conclusions:
1. There was enough dust in each pile for me to dip my finger once. You need to plan more, but you can do it as you go to control consumption.
2. At first, without getting the hang of it, the result was not dust, but shavings. It is not suitable for drawing, I just had to sweep it away from the drawing. Then I learned how to whittle away dust.
3. The colors of pastel in chalk and in dust are very different. In dust, most often, the color turns out brighter and deeper.

Initially, I sketched the outlines of future flowers in white pastel chalk (sorry, I forgot to take a photo). This is one of the most important moments for me personally - I feel fear in front of a white (in this case red) sheet, I close my eyes and apply the first small strokes, as if testing the paper, establishing contact with it. When the first contact has been made and the first slight balance has been achieved between me and the texture of the paper, I open my eyes and work more confidently until the outlines are ready.
Start filling the space with color from the background. I took the dust on my finger and rubbed it into the paper in a circular motion (extension - despite all the lessons on the Internet, I don’t know and don’t follow the techniques of drawing with pastels!). At first I didn’t understand the trick of the paper - the pigment leaves significant gaps in the rough texture of the paper. Then for some reason I got upset, stepped up and decided to sketch the background just with chalk, with strokes:

This doesn’t seem to be visible anywhere, but in those places where I shaded the background with chalk, it turned out to be a dirty surface. It’s good that the chalk only worked on a small piece.
Here you can see part of the original sketch and how I completed the top part of the background with brown tones:

Background finished:

My conclusions:
1. Still, the contact of your fingers with the dye is an amazing feeling... Imagine - you just had a blank sheet of paper, and now a drawing appears...
2. Chalk blends poorly in isolated form, but perfectly in the form of dust.
3. While I was painting the background, I began to like the paper feature - the color of the paper shows through the pigment, creating the mood of the picture - in this case, warm, sunny. The red paper supports the spots of poppies in the background and should shade the poppies in the foreground.
4. At the end of the post I will show the reference of the painting, but I will make a reservation right away - I did not set out to create a photographically realistic work. I took only the contours and colors as a basis. Further as your fingers lead.
5. Fingers are occasionally (read “constantly”) wiped on a damp cloth, very convenient. Two napkins were used for the background of this drawing.
6. I had to add dust from time to time, because I always ran out.
7. Shaders (applicators) are not suitable for the background at all (maybe I’m the only one who has this problem?), they erase more pigment than they add it to the paper.
8. Drawing greenery is the most rewarding activity. The eye rests, the soul rejoices.
9. Previously (before this drawing) I was a big idiot and did not understand the trick of colored paper for pastels at all. Therefore, apparently, my first attempt (unconsciously), painted on white watercolor paper, was unsuccessful. The color of the paper is selected individually in each specific case and allows you to emphasize the depth of pastel colors and reveal its shine.

The background is ready, and you can proceed to the poppies themselves. And then it hit me “suddenly” - I don’t have a red chalk!!! Well, that is, he is. But it's not red, it's pink. I sat in frustration for half an hour, shook my ICQ, and then remembered that I had a small “Gamma” set of 12 colors. There was a red crayon there - not the perfect scarlet color, but at least not pink.
Let's start working with the petals:

Here it turned out to be more convenient to work with shading, since the object in this case is quite small.
While I was working I needed an orange crayon. It turned out that all the orange crayons were also close to pink (though maybe I'm being paranoid), which didn't suit me at all. What should I do? The answer turned out to be super simple: mix red and yellow crayons, or rather their dust. The result is excellent.
We're done with the flowers, only the stems and bud remain:

And here is the finished result, photographed the next morning in sunlight:

The colors are a little duller than reality, but overall close to the original. Upon closer inspection, you can see how small particles of pastel sparkle in the light, refracting and reflecting it. The picture seems to glow.
Promised reference:

Ugh. I'm tired.

Thank you for attention! I will be happy to answer all your questions!

Drawing with pastels. Master class for beginners

Master class on drawing with pastels the painting “Visiting the fly agaric”.

Purpose of the master class: creating a drawing to decorate a room and develop cognitive interest.
Tasks:
1. introduction to the technique of drawing with pastel pencils.
2. develop the cognitive interest of children,
3. cultivate a desire to see the beauty of nature.

Every artist knows about many techniques and tools in which he can work, but everyone chooses something different for themselves. It could be painting or graphics, oil or watercolor, pencil or pen, or maybe... pastel.

Many people have heard this word, but rarely can anyone clearly say what this drawing tool is. And pastel is not one material, but a whole group, and it is used both in graphics and painting. Pastel can be easily recognized by the form in which it is produced - bars (crayons or pencils) of square or round cross-section. There are four separate types of pastels: dry, watercolor, wax and oil.

In this master class I used dry pastels. She's hard. It does not actually have a binder, it crumbles and breaks easily. But she draws very softly and velvety, and shades beautifully.

PROGRESS:

Pastels are a cross between colored pencils and crayons. It consists of colored pigments with chalk and binding elements. The technique of drawing with pastels originated from drawing with soft materials, such as charcoal pencils, charcoal, and sepia. Pastel pencils have many shades, most of them are delicate, like milk, giving a special grace to the drawings.

If you want to learn the technique of drawing with pastels, you should know that this technique is more suitable for drawings where the atmosphere, color mood, background play the main role, since drawing small details with pastels is inconvenient, these pencils are not intended for drawing details.

Drawing with pastels: preparation

Before we tell you how to draw with pastels (especially important for beginners), we will look at what is generally necessary for drawing, because pastel is not the most common material.

Pastel selection

There are three types of pastels: dry, wax, oil.

Dry, in turn, is divided into hard and soft.

Each type of pastel has its own characteristics and its own possibilities for working with drawings. Choose at your own discretion. We will talk about how to draw with dry pastels (below).

Paper for drawing with pastels

Yes, it must be special paper with a textured surface, because it is necessary for the pigment to be retained. Most often, pastels are used to draw on colored paper; it allows you to fully convey the richness of colors. The choice of color is individual, depending on the nature of the pattern.

Pastel Paper Types:

1. sandpaper (usually large format; for artistic purposes);
2. velvet paper;
3. pastel board (made from tiny particles of cork).

Other

In addition, the following may be useful: a blade, bristle brushes, rags, an eraser, a cotton pad - for correcting the pattern; hairspray or special fixative.

How to draw with dry pastels

1. The preliminary drawing is applied with chalk pastel, slightly different from the tone of the paper. The lines are thin, applied lightly so that you can only see the contours. Use adjustment materials (see above) if necessary. Don't use a graphite pencil as it will look bad to draw with pastels on top.
2. Next is the background. We apply the main tones by placing the chalk flat. If the length of the chalk is large, do not be afraid, break off the desired size (conveniently, 2-3 cm). If the paper is colored, apply the main tones only where necessary. There should be no gaps on the white paper (use a white chalk where necessary).
3. Outline the main objects, proceed to refine the drawing. Use lines, dots, strokes. It’s good to use pastels for shadows and color transitions. Use a shading tool (rag, cotton wool, brush or your own finger) and rub the desired areas of the design. In pastels you can layer colors on top of each other, experiment.
4. What else you need to know about how to draw with pastels. For beginners, it is often difficult to maintain tonality. Decide in advance what will be the lightest in the drawing, what will be a little darker, and what will be the darkest. Remember - each item has its own tone.
5. Some disadvantage of dry pastel is that it is difficult to convey the richness of the shadows. But this can be improved by adding color. Draw a shadow with a gray or black chalk, and add a color (of the object or area where the shadow is) on top. Blend.
6. View the drawing from the side. Highlight the main details with clearer lines, shade the secondary or too contrasting areas.
7. Fixing the drawing. Use sandpaper or velvet paper, this will preserve the design longer. You can use special aerosols to fix pastels. Hairspray will also work, but remember that the design will darken. You can also place the drawing under glass.

Oil pastel

And a few words about how to draw with oil pastels.

1. It is better to use light paper.
2. Thinner for oil paints (for example, pinene) is used as shading.
3. The preliminary drawing is applied with oil chalk or charcoal. In this case, the coal is brushed off before applying the pastel so that barely noticeable strokes remain.
4. Having applied the drawing with hatching, flat, we move on to working with a brush. Use a brush dipped in thinner to blur the drawing.
5. We draw the details, clarify the shapes, texture. We complete the drawing.

Among the many techniques and tools used by modern artists, pastel stands out for its unusual texture and brightness of color. It’s not easy to draw a portrait in pastels, but if you become interested in this direction, improve your own skills and make efforts to obtain the desired result, you can achieve what you want. Moreover, the process itself brings pleasure and draws you into the work headlong.

Before you start drawing with pastels, it is important to understand the features of this technique, as well as acquire the necessary materials for the creative process. The same set of tools is not suitable for beginners and professionals, so preparation for the creative process will be different. Only after this can you begin to figure out how to draw a portrait with pastels.

Benefits of painting with pastels

Many artists of different levels of professionalism prefer pastel painting to all other techniques. A portrait using this technique looks unusual and allows you to convey the slightest features of the artist’s mood. Other benefits of pastels include:

• simplicity of the process - pastel lays down easily, especially if you select all the materials and tools correctly;
• variety of colors - pastel is known for its soft transitions and combination of different shades;
• light fastness - unlike many other paints, it does not fade in the sun;
• velvety surface.

These advantages contribute to the popularity and love among artists who happily use pastels: the portrait technique with this tool allows you to make a beautiful and unusual image of a person. Although it is not as easy as novice artists would like.

Drawing tools for beginners

Drawing with pastels must begin with the preparation of materials and a place for future creativity. This artist's tool comes in several types: dry, oil and wax pastels. Dry, in turn, can be soft and hard.

In addition, you will need:

• special paper;
• brushes;
• a drawing board or any other flat surface on which you can attach a drawing sheet;
• an eraser that can be used to carefully remove excess lines;
• regular sandpaper, with which you can sharpen the chalk if necessary.

These tools are essential for drawing pastel portraits for beginners. To learn and comprehend the wisdom of this technique, such a set will be enough. And in the future you will have to expand your arsenal of materials and tools.

Tools for professionals

Simple and accessible materials are used by beginners, but as they learn and develop professionalism, their range will grow and expand. In the future you can also use:

• fixatives - substances that are sprayed onto a sheet of paper before starting work to fix the future drawing;
• turpentine or other pastel thinner, which will allow you to even out and generalize the layers of paint;
• work mask to minimize the entry of chalk dust into the respiratory tract;
• canvas - used instead of paper.

Careful preparation and selection of all materials will make the process more comfortable and easier. In the process of work, each artist will be able to evaluate the usefulness and appropriateness of each tool.

Features of choosing pastels

For beginning artists, dry pastels in the form of crayons are best. It can be soft or hard, you need to purchase both types and try to draw with both. When choosing paints, you must initially understand what will be painted and what color scheme will be needed for this.

When purchasing pastels, you need to pay attention to the quality of the paints and the manufacturer. It’s better to initially pay a little more, but buy suitable materials that will be comfortable for drawing. Having mastered the subtleties and nuances of drawing with pastels and honing your skills, you can try painting with oil and wax pastels. They differ in application technique, but with some effort they are not particularly difficult.

What paper do you need for pastels?

You cannot paint with such paints on regular paper, because a portrait with pastels will blur, saturate the thin sheet and be smeared. Therefore, it is better to take special paper. The following varieties are suitable for pastels:

• paper with a coarse surface that comes in a variety of colors;
• cold pressed watercolor paper;
• charcoal pencil paper - can withstand pastels, but is more suitable for rough sketches and short-term sketches;
• paper with an “emery” coating - has a fine abrasive coating, so it holds pastels well.

Choosing paper is an important stage in preparing for drawing, since not only the comfort of the process, but also the final result will depend on it.

Rules for drawing with pastels

In order for a pastel portrait to turn out beautiful and authentic, it is important to follow some rules for its depiction. And even if the first time the result is not what you would like, as you gain skill and professionalism it will turn out to be realistic.

When creating a portrait using pastels, you need to remember the following recommendations:

1. To begin with, it is important to imagine the general image of the upcoming drawing and highlight the main features that will distinguish this person from all others. Each person's face has something unique, different from others.
2. Before you start drawing, you need to determine the color scheme of the upcoming image. What shades predominate in a person’s face and image, how do they combine with each other?
3. When starting to draw, you first need to make weak sketches and an outline, on which the entire portrait will then lie.
4. Despite the fact that the human face, as a rule, appears warm and requires appropriate colors, it will also contain cold shades.
5. For layered drawings, it is better to choose soft pastels, then the layers will easily lay on top of each other.

There are many more rules for drawing with pastels, but you can start learning with these simple recommendations, and understand and apply the remaining nuances in the process of practice.

Sequence of drawing a portrait

To draw a beautiful and believable portrait, you need to follow a certain sequence of drawing lines and layers of pastels.

Image stages include:

1. Representation of the overall image of the face, separating light and dark areas.
2. Light drawing of lines, sketch of the general concept of the drawing.
3. Detailing the contour, drawing eyes, nose, lips according to the proportions of the human face.
4. Applying layers of nude pastels with a combination of warm and cool shades.
5. Guiding the main parts of the face, detailing.
6. Final touches, giving the face a natural expression, drawing small elements.

Drawing a portrait is not an easy process, and at first it may seem to the artist that there are too many mistakes and flaws. But diligence and the desire to learn how to draw with pastels are worth the result that you get in the end. It is important to enjoy the drawing process and not despair after the first unsuccessful attempt.

Pastels are a cross between colored pencils and crayons. It consists of colored pigments with chalk and binding elements. The technique of drawing with pastels originated from drawing with soft materials, such as charcoal pencils, charcoal, and sepia. Pastel pencils have many shades, most of them are delicate, like milk, giving a special grace to the drawings.

If you want to learn the technique of drawing with pastels, you should know that this technique is more suitable for drawings where the atmosphere, color mood, background play the main role, since drawing small details with pastels is inconvenient, these pencils are not intended for drawing details.

Drawing with pastels: preparation

Before we tell you how to draw with pastels (especially important for beginners), we will look at what is generally necessary for drawing, because pastel is not the most common material.

Pastel selection

There are three types of pastels: dry, wax, oil.

Dry, in turn, is divided into hard and soft.

Each type of pastel has its own characteristics and its own possibilities for working with drawings. Choose at your own discretion. We will talk about how to draw with dry pastels (below).

Paper for drawing with pastels

Yes, it must be special paper with a textured surface, because it is necessary for the pigment to be retained. Most often, pastels are used to draw on colored paper; it allows you to fully convey the richness of colors. The choice of color is individual, depending on the nature of the pattern.

Pastel Paper Types:

1. sandpaper (usually large format; for artistic purposes);
2. velvet paper;
3. pastel board (made from tiny particles of cork).

Other

In addition, the following may be useful: a blade, bristle brushes, rags, an eraser, a cotton pad - for correcting the pattern; hairspray or special fixative.

How to draw with dry pastels

1. The preliminary drawing is applied with chalk pastel, slightly different from the tone of the paper. The lines are thin, applied lightly so that you can only see the contours. Use adjustment materials (see above) if necessary. Don't use a graphite pencil as it will look bad to draw with pastels on top.
2. Next is the background. We apply the main tones by placing the chalk flat. If the length of the chalk is large, do not be afraid, break off the desired size (conveniently, 2-3 cm). If the paper is colored, apply the main tones only where necessary. There should be no gaps on the white paper (use white chalk where necessary).
3. Outline the main objects, proceed to refine the drawing. Use lines, dots, strokes. It’s good to use pastels for shadows and color transitions. Use a shading tool (rag, cotton wool, brush or your own finger) and rub the desired areas of the design. In pastels you can layer colors on top of each other, experiment.
4. What else you need to know about how to draw with pastels. For beginners, it is often difficult to maintain tonality. Decide in advance what will be the lightest in the drawing, what will be a little darker, and what will be the darkest. Remember - each item has its own tone.
5. Some disadvantage of dry pastel is that it is difficult to convey the richness of the shadows. But this can be improved by adding color. Draw a shadow with a gray or black chalk, and add a color (of the object or area where the shadow is) on top. Blend.
6. View the drawing from the side. Highlight the main details with clearer lines, shade the secondary or too contrasting areas.
7. Fixing the drawing. Use sandpaper or velvet paper, this will preserve the design longer. You can use special aerosols to fix pastels. Hairspray will also work, but remember that the design will darken. You can also place the drawing under glass.

Oil pastel

And a few words about how to draw with oil pastels.

1. It is better to use light paper.
2. Thinner for oil paints (for example, pinene) is used as shading.
3. The preliminary drawing is applied with oil chalk or charcoal. In this case, the coal is brushed off before applying the pastel so that barely noticeable strokes remain.
4. Having applied the drawing with hatching, flat, we move on to working with a brush. Use a brush dipped in thinner to blur the drawing.
5. We draw the details, clarify the shapes, texture. We complete the drawing.

Oil pastels are very different from dry pastels. In fact, these are wax crayons familiar to many - linseed oil acts as a binder for the pigment. People who don’t know about pastels in general often come to the store and buy oil pastels because of their bright colors and beautiful crayons.
I bought myself a box to experiment with. It turned out that there are a lot of ways to use these beautiful colorful crayons. I have Mungyo pastels in 36 colors, great shades from acidic to natural. This is what they look like. It’s good for testing, but if you want something even better, you can look at Van Gogh and Sennelier.

Drawing on regular pastel paper

Drawing on sandpaper

Painting with solvent

Sgrafitto

Encaustic

Finally, a few features of oil pastels.
Over time, the oil is absorbed into the base and the pattern becomes a little darker. If the design was based on white paper, yellowish oil stains may appear on it, so it is better to use colored paper or cover the entire surface of the design. There are also cases when, over time, oil appears in droplets across the picture; you just need to carefully remove them with a solvent.
Oil pastels, unlike dry pastels, do not require fixing. Sometimes oil pastels are varnished, but I find this unnecessary. Pastels should be stored in a folder carefully so that they do not stick to anything. It is best to keep the drawing under glass. The glass should not touch the work.

In general, oil pastels seem to me to be a very bright and lively material. It is suitable for “careless”, generalized in style, paintings. For those who like to tinker with details and smooth halftones, oil pastels will most likely not be suitable.

Yes, I finished it!! And now I can present this course to your attention! Hooray:) So, first things first!

So, this is a pastel drawing training course, which consists of 10 lessons, each of which is in PDF format, that is, it actually consists of text and photographs, of which there will be a lot! Moreover, in each lesson we will draw in stages, which simplifies the whole task!

I structured the topics so that they go in such a way that subsequent lessons use knowledge from previous ones.

The course is designed to teach you the basic rules for conveying a convincing drawing, as well as improve and train your hand, learn to see more colors and simply get inspiration and pleasure from the drawing process itself, and therefore I tried to make it very bright and cheerful, which By the way, in the middle of autumn it’s not at all out of place!

The entire course contains over 400 photos!

The course is designed for your self-study. C ena course 3500 rub.You can pay it here

After payment, you will receive a download link, you will need to download and unpack it: place the cursor on the received file (zip archive), right-click and in the window that appears, click on “Extract to Pastel Drawing Course, 10 lessons.”

More detailed payment instructions are available here.

For all questions, write to email

Yes, it is better to prepare drawing materials in advance. In order not to overload this post, I wrote a separate post about the materials you will need for drawing

At the end of the course, you will not only have more experience in drawing, but also 10 pastel drawings with which you can decorate your home and give them to your loved ones.

A little about the structure of each lesson. Depending on the topic of the lesson, first there will be a little theory, and then the main part - drawing a plot with detailed photos of the drawing stages, my explanations of what, how and why we draw. In all the lessons, I paid special attention to the selection of colors, so that it would be easier for you to understand the colors; the lessons have a lot of color rulers that make it easy to select crayons. Some lessons have diagrams and sketches :) Each lesson comes with an additional example, which you don’t have to draw (if you really want to, then of course you can :), this example is also quite detailed and also contains many photos of the drawing stages. It is needed in order to better understand the topic :)

Here are the topics themselves:

1).General questions about drawing with pastels. We draw fish.

This is one of the simplest lessons, which is logical since it is the first :)

It will deal with the main issues that arise when drawing with pastels: how to apply and how to shade. We will also begin to study the basic principles of drawing and, in order to “paint ourselves”, we will draw a simple picture with fish.

2 ).Learning to convey volume. Drawing a rosehip berry with pastel.

This lesson is challenging, with a lot of information! But don't be afraid :) firstly, there are a lot of explanations and photos of stages in the lesson, so we will do everything gradually. And, secondly, drawing detailed and quite complex drawings gives you a lot of experience at once, even if it seems that nothing is working out. In general, we are not afraid of anything, but sit down and draw! :) Yes, and one more thing - your attentiveness will be required here, although it is needed everywhere :)

In this lesson we will learn to draw a three-dimensional object that is part of a complex background. In fact, the lesson contains three drawings, but from them you will need to draw a rosehip berry:

3).Draw a blooming rosehip in pastel.

The main purpose of this o lesson - learn to convey the volume of uneven planes (petals). Let's learn how to use a beautiful gray-pink-green color scheme, and also apply the knowledge from lesson No. 2.

4).Drawing a landscape with pastels .

This lesson is dedicated to a very pleasant topic - landscape. We will consider the basic rules for constructing it and applying color, and also learn how to compose your own, “profitable” landscape from several photographs. We will also learn to quickly draw a large number of similar details (for example, Christmas trees on mountain slopes), and convey them with general lines and spots.

5).Draw a bunch of berries with pastels.

In this lesson we will draw a juicy bunch of berries. The purpose of this lesson is to show you how to draw several volumetric objects of the same type, as well as how to draw a complex motley background with pastels. Well, knowledge of the scope of the subject from lesson No. 2 will come in handy again.

6).Draw a still life with pastels.

The still life will be with a saucepan, tomatoes and peppers. We will touch on the basic issues of constructing a still life, deal with the horizon line and step by step draw a glossy shiny pan with vegetables and a beautiful background.

You can hang this drawing in your kitchen, as it is very kitchen-friendly.

7).Sketching flowers on craft paper.

I find this lesson easy. But it is very important to draw it as intended, and the idea is to draw it very quickly on large format kraft paper - A2. Kraft paper can be replaced with pastel paper, but the format must be large. This lesson is designed to improve the speed of your drawing and practice clear and confident strokes. I know that many people miss this :) We will draw forget-me-nots in the grass.

8).Draw a flamingo in the water with pastels.

In this lesson I will show how to draw ripples on water, what colors to use. But the main part of the lesson is devoted to flamingos. Many people perceive colors and objects in a simplified way. For example, at first glance, flamingos are white and pink. But if we paint it only with white and pink, it will turn out flat. In this lesson we will learn to draw the volume of complex shapes and look for their true colors.

9).Draw a cow with pastels.

Here again we will solve issues of volume, folds, colors, perspective.

Using a black and white sketch, we will determine the tonality. Orange pastel paper is perfect for this theme.

In this post I show a piece of a cow - this is a nose that is not completely painted over :)

10).Draw a night city landscape with reflections in pastels.

This is one of the most difficult lessons, if only because it contains a large number of small details. Therefore, using this example, it is good to learn to abstract from details and see the main thing, to combine details into general areas . We will learn how to construct objects correctly, as well as work with tones. A separate pleasant topic is the topic of reflections in water. Here is a sketch of the picture we will draw.

The tone of the picture will be like this:

That's all. If you don’t understand anything, write and ask!

Let's look at a clear example of the pastel drawing technique from a photograph. For this we use a photo of the Taos Mountains in the early evening from El Prado, a suburb of northern Taos, New Mexico.

When creating this pastel, I worked directly on white grainy paper. I used a charcoal pencil to draw the main outlines loosely but precisely, creating the most important shapes, main lines and relationships of light and shadow.

As always, at the very beginning of the work I determined the center of the composition and then acted so that each element of the picture supported it. For example, from the moment the white adobe building was identified as the center of the composition, I began to draw it against a dark background, and against the backdrop of a bright array of trees, thereby enhancing the contrast and uniting the two opposite principles of the landscape. This stage of work took approximately 30 minutes.
When I paint or teach, I attach great importance to systematizing the process of working on a painting. I believe that first of all, the order of the stages of work on the painting must be correctly determined. By following these rules, I can be sure of the success of the painting at the very beginning of the work and really achieve acuity of perception by the end of the painting. In my art workshop, I help students overcome the discouragement and frustration in the initial stages of painting by teaching them how to plan and how to proceed step by step through the painting process. I approach each student individually, in accordance with their level of artistic skill. Beginners and young inexperienced artists can avoid many failures if they build their work in stages.
When I paint in pastels or oils, I usually work on a surface that is exactly 50% neutral gray.
So, I quickly cover the surface of the drawing with paints that are close in tone to the final color scheme of the painting, but still somewhat darker. From the point of view of drawing, composition and color scheme, this is a complete pastel, but it is still rough, sharp, and somewhat unpleasant to the eye.

Then we pass over the work with a brush moistened with a solvent (without the smell of turpentine). It is interesting that for many it is this part of the work that is most enjoyable, and the result is enjoyable. Starting to blur the pastel from lighter tones, using wide, free strokes, I create a working surface that is correct in tone, fairly neutral, with well-established images.

It should be noted that depending on the subject of the painting and the impression that the artist wants to make on the viewer, some of the paintings at this stage of work can be exhibited as finished works. The described method makes it possible to use one of the features and advantages of pastel - the amazing variety of techniques used in it. At this stage the painting has the appearance and impression of watercolor, but this should not confuse the artist, because in the next stage of work the opaque pastel will cover everything in the best possible way. We will leave the “washed” painting layer unwritten only in those places of the picture where the “transparency” effect is required. This step takes approximately 20 or 30 minutes.
When this stage is completed, an amazing thing happens: by stepping back from the painting a few steps, I can get an idea of ​​what the finished painting will look like. In future work I will have to strictly follow the drawing already existing at this stage, although I will still be adding additional layers of pastel. Upon completion of this layer of “sub-painting” there is also an already established full color scheme and the ratio of light and shadow in the work.
Now I can go to the center of the composition and bring it to a real conclusion. It is very important. The center of the composition should work. If the center of the composition is unsuccessful, then no matter how well the rest of its parts are executed, the picture will not be successful. Working in concentric circles around the center of the composition and moving further and further away from it, I bring the painting to full completion.

Even though I move back and forth across the entire surface as I work, I always make sure that the surface is painted evenly, without large jumps. The edge of the painting, which gives a certain image, must be connected in color and combination of light and shadow with a part that has already been created correctly. This helps keep the light-shadow and color relationships consistent. This can be compared to building a bridge, which begins on one side of the river and continues step by step (across) to the other side. This bridge is more likely to hold firmly than if it were built starting on both sides of the river and building until the builders met presumably in the middle. The final stage of this painting takes about 1.5 hours.