Video: Establishing Still Life Pastel Colors

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Still life subjects rarely have just one color. Learn how to paint complicated color subjects with pastels in this free video.

- Adding Initial Background Color in Pastel Paintings
- Refining Edges with Pastel Background Colors

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Video Transcript

Again, working from trying to establish the middle values. Let's take a look at those pots. What color as those pots? Well, the simple answer is they're black. But, they're not black. What I'm seeing is a bunch of colors ranging from almost a white to a series of grays in here. There's another highlight there, which is white. This one's almost yellow. This has kind of got some bluish and some greenish in there. And, you'll see the same kinds of things here. This is a gray. This has got some, this is a light gray in here. This has got white. So, let's just rough in that. And, I'm going to use a gray-green to just generally establish the general form of these objects. Not worrying about the highlights at this point at all, just filling in with some color that we will later refine that's close to what I'm seeing. I'm not worried at this point with shadows. I'm not worried at this point with the lighting or the highlights. I'm just trying to establish the general shapes and the general tone of the objects that are in front of my eyes. Now, one of the things that you should be conscious of when doing this kind of work or this kind of play. If you're not playing, then you're not having any fun. Is, to just use what you see as your guide and to spend more time looking at that than your painting. Your painting, although it may seem like it's important is not the important thing. Our subject is the important thing. Our subject has the information that we need.

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Establishing Still Life Pastel Colors

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