Author: austinwalker11

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The Inspiration

For my next project of using pastels with paint, I wanted today a more night sky scene. I thought I could do something simple, like a valley of flowers with the moon and maybe a cloud. It was just that simple with coming up with this idea.

Planning Phase

I used a very similar process for planning this panting as I did with the last one. First I did a light Sketch of where I wanted everything to go. With the cloud and the moon, I though it would of looked a bit better if I did a white with a hint of blue in them. And the Grass would be a Dark green, while the sky would be a near black blue.

For the color pastels I thought it Would of been a cool Idea to use them to draw out the curators in the moon. To make it look less like a floating white orb in the sky. For the flowers, I thought I could draw dots with the chalk pastels since this is a more wide shot of the valley

Panting the Panting

I started with the sky background, as I wanted every thing to pop out. To get the shade of blue that I wanted, it took a lot of color mixing for me get the right shade. After playing around with 4ish different colors, I laded on this soft midnight blue that I liked. On the spot I thought a very subtle umbrae would of looked good with the sky. I just added some white as I went down the sky, not very hard.

Next I did the moon with the cloud, the moon I used tape to make sure it stayed the shape I wanted. With the cloud, I just used a sponge like I did with the last project. Overall It only took me like 15 minutes to get the moon and the cloud finished.

The next day I started panting the grass, I played around with the greens until I got the dark shade that I wanted to use. I played down some more tape to keep my Lines sharp, and protect the sky. When I actually started panting the grass, the paint came out really streaky and didn’t look great. I had to wait until the next class finish panting the second coat for the grass, which made that its own 2 day project.

Adding the pastels and final panting

For the color Pastels, they were pretty easy to work out. For the moon, I just added some lines and a circle and soothed them out to give them that curator look. The flowers just took some dabbing with the color pastels to make the look nice. the tricky bit with them was to not smouch them to much or they would of looked like a cloud of dust.

After the color pastels I was finished with my second project with this pathways rotation. I was happy with how this panting also turned out, especially the moon. I feel that my cloud is a little to big, but I might just being nitpicking. Either way this project and the previous was a lot of fun, and I got to learn some things.

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Inspiration for the project

For my school art project I wanted to-do something that used a mix of both chalk pastels and paint. This is because I thought this would something unique and new to me to progress my art skills. After some research, I found virtually nothing online to see how to-do this. (not a good start) Although the hiccup didn’t stop me form running with my idea, just meant I would half to experiment with it.

Planning my first panting

For my first panting, I wanted to-do a sunset sky like the one I saw driving down Waukesha one day. I was loved how the orange reflected of some of the clouds in the sky, and thought that would be a good first use of pastels with a panting.

To get started I lightly sketched with a pencil of what colors I wanted to use, and where the clouds would go. In the image above you see that I left short notes of what color the cloud should be, what colors the umbrae would be and more.

In the end I didn’t do to much planning for this panting. I went this direction because I just wanted to see how the color pastels would work with the panting, and I was a bit short on time thanks to school. Either way I felt like i had a foundation I could start with when I patented the next day.

Actually panting the panting

I came into my classroom excited to get started with the panting part of my first project. I got started that day with the sky umbrae. What I did was start with yellow art the bottom, and transitioned into red at the top. It was a little annoying to get it to look how I wanted at first. What helped me was to not take to long so that the paint was wet when doing the umbrae. A tip I would also recommend is to mix a transition color. What I mean is for example when doing an umbrae between orange and yellow, mix a little bit of the yellow and orange together to Put in the middle of them. This will help make it a bit smother and cleaner is what I found.

After the sky, I got started with the clouds. I mixed a bit of white paint together with a little bit of black to get that off whiteish-gray color I wanted. Then I took a sponge dip it into the paint, and the dapped the sponge on the canvas. This got me the fluffily look for the clouds, and looks a lot better then a paint brush in my opinion. What I would Recommend Is layering the clouds with mutiable colors to make then not look flat.

The Color pastels and final product

After both the clouds and the sky were done drying, I was able to get started with adding color pastels. I thought the pastels would be great for the orange highlighting on the clouds due to how bright the pastels can be. To get started I used tape to give the highlighting a sharper edge on the top, and stop form the chalk pastels form covering the whole clouds. Then I draw and on the pastels and used my finger to smooth them out while the tape still on.

After adding the color pastels I was complete with my first project of mixing pastels and paints together. My thoughts are that this was a cool idea, and I’m definitely glad that I ran with it. What I think is best is to definitely get the painting part done first, and then add the color pastels added after. Overall I have an interesting Idea that I can do in the next project.