I then sketch them on my medium tone paper using a 6B General’s charcoal pencil. By squinting at the subject, I am able to locate all the tones that appear to be darker than my background. In this particular situation, my background acts as my medium tone. Squinting also helps me group all the tones into three simple categories: dark, medium and light. Squinting at the subject or at the photo document I am using helps me simplif and understand what I am seeing by removing all the distracting, unecessary details. This is especially important if you’re planning to have some parts of your paper show as part of the final result.įirst, I make sure to create the volume before approaching colours. Starting with a light sketch helps me make all the necessary corrections without marking my paper with heavy construction lines that I wouldn’t be able to erase easily or cover with the pigments.
This is a good way to know if my composition is well balanced (if I haven’t made preliminary composition studies before commiting my design onto the paper). When I say accurate, I am talking about having the whole composition of the painting layed out with the right positioning and proportions, including the outline of the projected shadows. I find it very important to start with an accurate drawing. When the tone of the paper is close to the tone of the overall background, it makes it easier to make the subject stand out early in the process. For this particular subject, the green apple on a blue background, I chose a neutral medium gray that ressembles the tone of my background. I choose mostly based on the tone of the paper, before even considering the colour. So when it comes to choosing, I really only have to choose one of the colours that this particular brand offers. My go-to has been the Pastel Card paper by Sennelier. Over the years, I have experimented with all kinds of pastel papers. There is so much more to it! Here is a glimpse of my process. Something important to understand is that there will always be challenging parts in a painting, no matter what level you’re at, so better be equiped to surmount them! The goal of having a method, a stuctured approach to our art, and a lot of information to rely on, is that it frees us from uncertainties and gives us answers to questions we might have thought were supposed to be answered only by our artist intuition. It also comes with the reassuring feeling of knowing that I will be able to avoid a ton of mistakes from the get go, and that I’ll breeze through the process, overcoming any obstacle that will come along the way. It can seem pretty tedious from the perspective of the fast doer, but this longer, meticulous and well structured approach gives me the satisfying feeling of knowing what I am doing and why I am doing it that way. Except, My process involves A LOT of thinking and decision making. After all, we often paint to give ourselves a moment of peace, to stop thinking and to escape the worries of everyday life. You have chosen your subject, all your favorite pastels are out and you can’t wait to get started on your new pastel painting! Many rush into it without asking themselves too many questions.
What would Melissa Breault do? – a pastel process –
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