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| 'The Promise of a Beautiful Day' 8x10 pastel ©Karen Margulis |
I love doing underpaintings for my pastels. I probably do some sort of wet underpainting for 95% of my work. The fun part is deciding which technique to use. I love to experiment and so I am not content with using only one technique. Alcohol, turpenoid washes, watercolors, oils....they all have their own unique results. I usually choose an underpainting technique that I feel will best supposrt my subject or concept for my painting.
An underpainting technique that I love for beaches and snow scenes is a value underpainting with an alcohol or turpenoid wash. It really works well for any landscape in which there is a strong contrast of darks and lights...or where you really want to get a nice feeling of light. What you are doing is a value study on your paper with a hard pastel and brushing it in with water,alcohol or turpenoid.
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| Value Underpainting with an Alcohol Wash |
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| Supplies for an Alcohol Wash |
How to do a Value Underpainting
- You need to work on sanded paper that can take a wet wash, rubbing alcohol, a stiff cheap bristle brush and a dark hard pastelsuch as a Nupastel. I like a dark blue-purple.
- Design your painting and do a quick value sketch.
- Block in the big simple shapes and assign each a value. Concentrate on using dark, middle, light and the white of your paper.Keep it simple! Vary the pressure of the pastel to get the right value.
- Make sure your values shapes are not spotty...connect shapes when you can.
- Using the alcohol paint the shapes starting with the lightest. Try to keep brush clean so that you don't end up with a big dark blob.
- Tip: take your time and really paint with your brush. Try to describe the object you are painting.Don't rush this part...paint with sensitivity.
- Let the underpainting dry before adding pastel.
If you would like to try some other underpainting techniques you might like to read my other posts on underpaintings HERE
3 comments:
Wonderful instructions and great blog. Love your beach scene. You've inspired me to dust off my pastel box and take it traveling.
Thank you so much Diane! I appreciate you visiting my blog and for your nice comments! Pastels are wonderful and I love taking them with me when I travel. I do try to downsize and take a small box and find it is usually all I need!
Thanks again!
Wow, that is gorgeous. I love it. I've tried a water wash technique sometimes with deep violet, it's very cool. Ought to try it with alcohol now that I've got some.
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