painting sunlight & shadow with pastels by maggie price

8/6/2019 Painting Sunlight & Shadow with Pastels by Maggie Price

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/painting-sunlight-shadow-with-pastels-by-maggie-price 1/8

essential techniques

for brilliant effects

Maggie Price

sunlightshadow W I T H PA S T E L S

P A I N T I N G



2 Painting Sunlight & Shadow with Pastels • Maggie Price

Contents5 Introduction

So What, Exactly, Is a Soft Pastel?

How Should I Arrange My Pastels?

Important Techniques: Underpainting

Important Techniques: Applying Turpenoid

Important Techniques: Rubbing and Blending

Important Techniques: Lifting Off Color

Important Techniques: Working From Reference Photos

16 Chapter 1

Te Basic Principles of

Light and Color Discover the most important principles of depicting natural

light and shadows in your paintings.

36 Chapter 2

Observing the Color of Light Explore three of the most common environmental factors to

take into consideration as you attempt to portray the color of

light in your compositions: air quality, altitude and weather.

58 Chapter 3

Creating Realistic Shadows Uncover the many ways that shadows help describe forms

while enhancing the appearance of light, making your

paintings more believable.

86 Chapter 4

Painting Lifelike Reflections Learn about the different elements that influence the

appearance of water’s reflective surface, from the angle of

light to the slant of the surrounding land mass.

112 Conclusion

124 Index



3

How should I arrange my pastels?Pastel artists are faced with a delight-

ful but dizzying array of pastel sticks.

Each time you prepare to make a

mark on your surface, you must firstselect a pastel stick, considering its

value, temperature, and hue. How

you arrange your pastels can make

this selection easier. Rather than

keeping each set of pastels in the box

it came in—which can result in a

confusing jumble of sets—it’s a good

idea to put all the pastels you want

to use in one well-arranged box. Tis

box can serve as your studio set as well as your traveling set if it’s small

enough. If you prefer a large box for

the studio, you may want a second

smaller box for painting outdoors.

Tere are many boxes com-

mercially available, but some artists

prefer to build their own or make

their own modifications. Whichever

you choose, the ideal box will have

six divisions into which you cansort your pastels. Looking at those

divisions from left to right in the

photo below, you will see the value

divisions, while looking from top to

bottom, you’ll see the temperature

divisions.

As you begin to arrange your

pastels, you’ll find that obvious warm

colors, such as red and yellow, are

easy to identify, and that obviouscool colors, such as blue, are easy to

see. Te ambiguous colors are a little

more difficult. For instance, look-

ing at purple, you may have to ask,

“Is it more blue than red? Or more

red than blue?” Green is the most

difficult color to define in terms of

temperature. Te easy solution is to

put greens in the middle of the top-

to-bottom temperature division. You will find that simply orga-

nizing your pastels is an exercise in

perceiving value. Your eye can see far

more than six value distinctions, so

as you place each pastel, you will ask

yourself, “Does it fit better in this

value section, or in this one?” Over

time, you may move a pastel from

one place to another as your percep-

tion of value improves. And, as yourperception of value is sharpened

from this daily practice of organizing

pastels, you’ll find your perceptions

improving as you look at your sub-

ject, your photograph or the painting

on your easel.




Te interplay of shadows and reflections can create a wonderful subject.

Areas where shadows cross reflections can be rich and dramatic, leading

the viewer to spend time enjoying the painting. When you combine these

elements with the attractive subject of children on a beach, you can create

a powerful composition that transcends the somewhat trite subject and

takes it to a new level.

Depicting Shadows Cast onReflective Surfaces

D E M O N S R A I O N B Y R I C H A R D L U N D G R E N ( E X C E R P )

Reference Photo

This is the best of about thirty pictures taken of the boys on the beach. Note that minor

adjustments need to be made to the boys’ hands during the sketching phase.

The color of the background underpainting will serve to tint the paper close to the

color of wet sand. Since water covers most of the sand, the underpainting helps sug-

gest the illusion of texture.

MATER I A L S

S U R F A C E

18" × 24" (46cm × 61cm) white professional

grade Wallis sanded pastel paper

P A S T E L S

Light Neutral Tan-Soft

Dark Burnt Umber-Hard

Burnt Umber-Soft

Burnt Sienna-Semi Hard

Cinnamon-Hard

Indian Red-Hard

Medium Orange-Hard

Light Orange-Hard

Pompeian Red-Hard

Van Dyke Brown-Hard

Walnut Brown-Hard

Light Pale Yellow-Hard

Light Earth Green-Hard

Light Cobalt Blue-Soft

Medium Cobalt Blue

Blue Violet-Hard

Light Blue Violet-Hard

Light Ochre-Hard

Flesh-Hard

White-Soft

White-Hard

Light Pink-Hard

Sepia-Hard

Burnt Carmine-Hard

Medium Carmine-Hard

O T H E R

Liquitex Matte Medium

3-inch (8cm) house-painting brush

1-inch (3cm) synthetic watercolor brush

One sheet of white 50-lb. (105gsm) drawing

paper

Mineral spirits

Nos. 2, 2B, 4B, and 9B pencils

48-inch (122cm) steel ruler

No. 2 flat color shaper

SpectraFix Pastel Fixative

White

Light Yellow

Dark Burnt Umber

Dark Red Earth

Light Red-orange

Orange

Light Yellow

Red Orange

Dark Cobalt Blue

Medium Blue Violet

Turquoise

P A S T E L P E N C I L S



5

1Complete the Sketch

Draw a value sketch using correct proportions. Make

compositional decisions, such as keeping the figures to the right

and cropping the sand pail on the right by the edge of the paint-

ing. o make the painting more interesting, the position of the

hands is changed in this step.

3Underpaint the Background

Lay in a light coat of soft neutral gray using the broad

side of your stick. Ten, using mineral spirits and your 1-inch

(3cm) synthetic brush, dissolve the pastel into the surface of the

sanded paper, yielding a color similar to that of wet sand.

Because this is a complex composition, refrain from under-

painting any further. Instead, move on to painting the figures.

5Block in the Figures

Using the same pastel colors used for the faces, block in

the boys’ torsos, arms and legs. Start with the darkest areas and

work toward the lighter areas. Pay particular attention to getting

the transition between areas in light and shadow correct.

Begin the outline of the boy on the left’s shovel, sand pail

and swimming trunks using a medium orange pastel pencil and

a hard, light orange pastel to preserve the edges of the shovel

from the background, so that the shapes won’t be lost as you

continue to work.

6Finish the Figures and Fill in the Swim Trunks on the Left

Finish the figures the same way you finished the faces. Use

a color shaper to get the edge between the figure and the back-

ground correct. Drag the shaper over areas of slight buildup in

the background to create a clean line. Be sure to clean the tip of

the shaper between strokes so as not to transfer color where you

don’t want it.




9Block in the Swim Trunks

on the Right

o capture the Hawaiian print of the

swimming trunks on the boy to the

right, begin by blocking in the dark-

est blue of the trunks as shown in this

detail. Te trunks can be loosely defined

since the patterns will be abstracted in

the final rendering.

Begin with a hard dark indigo blue

pastel. Next, use a hard Prussian Blueand a hard medium-value Cobalt Blue.

Ten add the red in the pattern, using

a hard Burnt Carmine. Indicate the

lighter reds with a hard medium-value

Carmine pastel.

8Paint the Pail on the Right

Outline the penciled line of the pail

on the right with a sharpened hard pastel

in light orange and medium orange, or

use pastel pencils in similar shades. Do

the same for the turquoise blue handle.

Having established the edges of the pail,

fill in the rest of the color paying atten-

tion to where the sun shines through the

pail and highlights are created.



7

10 Add Finishing Touches

Complete the swim trunks of the boy on the right using hard white and

hard light gray pastels to indicate the white outline of the print. Next, refine the

pattern using the same colors you used for blocking in. Add a few highlights of

lighter values of the same reds and blues used to complete the trunks.

With the same neutral gray used for the shadow cast by the pail on the left,

paint the shadows cast by the boy and sand pail on the right. Again use a soft

medium cobalt blue to glaze the shadow. Within this shadow area, add darker

values of the reflected colors of the swim trunks and the boys’ skin tones. o

finish the shadow, add a little light neutral gray to indicate the light reflected

under the pail.Next, complete the reflections cast by the boys with a lighter tone of the

neutral gray used in the cast shadow. Indicate the reflections of the boys’ skin

with darker values of the colors used to fill in their figures.

Finally, add some soft cobalt blue to the reflections to indicate wet areas of

the sand.

Luke and Jake

Richard Lundgren

Pastel on white professional grade Wallis

sanded pastel paper

18" × 24" (46cm × 61cm)



8

ISBN 13. . . . . . . . 978-1-4403-0391-3

ISBN 10. . . . . . . . . . 1-4403-0391-6

UPC . . . . . . . . . . . 0 35313 64948 6EAN . . . . . . . . . . .9 781440 303913SRN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Z7062

Category. . . . . . . . Art Techniques/PastelPrice. . . . . . . . US $24.99, CAN $28.99Trim . . . . . . . . . . 8.25"w x10.875"hPage count . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128Binding . . . . . . . . . . . . . Paperback

Publication month. . . . . . . . April 2011Word count . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30, 228

# of color illustrations . . . . . . . . . 250 # of b/w illustrations . . . . . . . . . . 20Interior color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4c

Features• Maggie Price is a well-known artist in a medium

that is growing in popularity

• 10 full step-by-step painting demonstrations

• Shows you everything you need to know about

painting sunlight and shadow

• Accomplished contributors (Pastel Society of

America signature members and instructors with

good representation in exhibitions and shows)

provide inspiration and demonstrations to give a

variety of styles and approaches

• Gallery of spectacular sunlight and shadow effects

About the AuthorMaggie Price is the co-founder, former editor and current con-

tributor for The Pastel Journal . She has written more than 100

articles about pastels and distinguished pastel artists. She serves

on the editorial advisory boards of The Pastel Journal and The

Artist’s Magazine . She is also the author of Painting with Pastels:

Easy Techniques to Master the Medium (North Light Books, 2007).

Price teaches workshops in pastel each year worldwide, and

juries or judges art exhibitions. More information and images of

her work can be found at www.MaggiePriceArt.com.

an imprint of F+W Media, inc.

Painting Sunlight & Shadow with Pastels by Maggie Price

painting sunlight & shadow with pastels by maggie price

Documents