Quick Studies on Canson: A Recipe for Fun!

'Mushrooms Ahead'              9x12               pastel             ©Karen Margulis
available $150

 All you really need is a piece of paper and a few pastels.  Sometimes you just want to keep things simple.  I love the versatility of pastels. I love all of the wonderful techniques we have. Who would have believed we could paint with vodka and pastels!  But we can...and it is a lot of fun.

Our choices can be overwhelming. And sanded pastel paper can be expensive. Wouldn't it be great to sometimes just take out a piece of Canson paper and a few pastels and paint a quick painting?  No big plans. No messy underpaintings. No big expense.  Just pure expression on paper. Like today's painting....a few pastels on Canson paper.

I like to go back to basics sometimes. I like to do quick studies on Canson Mi-Teintes paper. Just for fun and for practice. I am always trying to get in my Miles of Canvas!  In my latest digital Demo Download I share my approach for a quick study on Canson.   The demo is available in my Etsy shop for $6. You can view in online as a PDF or print it out and follow along.

a screen shot of the Demo download

Here is an excerpt from the demo:

Like many artists new to pastels, I first started with Canson Mi-Teintes paper, someNuPastels and some Rembrandts. And like many I struggled with this combination. Icouldnʼt get the rich colors that I admired in so many pastel paintings. Mine were muddyand dull. Once I discovered sanded papers and softer pastels I didnʼt buy any more.Canson paper. I decided I didnʼt like it. I am so glad that I decided to give it another tryafter seeing the work of several artists who do beautiful work on Canson.  

A photo from my demo

If this painting looks familiar to you from my recent YouTube video it is the same scene!  I painted two versions. The first was for the YouTube video and the second one was done as a Time Lapse video for my digital demo download.  You can see the time lapse video at this link:

http://youtu.be/bQNk7tqmpHI

The pastels I ised for this painting

I am excited to share these demos with you. I never have enough space on a blog post to share all I would like so these mini lessons allow me to share even more! Thank you!