Start Your Pastel Using Black and White! Make a Stencil for Practice, or Directly Block in...

Most artists get bogged down in all the details in photographs when they try to paint from them. This video walks a beginner through how to make big shapes, then using black and white soft pastels, pastelist Avon Waters, demos how to quickly use four shades of black, white, and grays to block in a landscape. If you make a stencil first, it helps beginners, but you can skip the stencil and use black and white directly to block in a photo source.
Then he demos how only using green and blue, and those grays turn the blues and greens into a painting that becomes the solid foundation onto which to build your soft pastel or wet pastel underpainting.
This process is so versatile that you can repeat it easily after making the first one using the stencil process and then repeat the photo source as often as you want while you experiment with different color schemes or palettes.

[@sueaberle935]

Very nice and well done, thank you for sharing.

[@PastelWithAvon]

Glad to help….and thanks for saying well done-Im new at this and flying by the seat of my pants , so that comment means a lot to me right now. Thanks

[@janarlenesogge1729]

Amazing how much work is already done towards a completed painting by doing this

[@PastelWithAvon]

If in doubt how to proceed….this oftentimes helps. You may not use it every time but it is a good tool and exercise. Thanks for watching.

[@nirupmaanand2315]

Very nice Thank you.

[@PastelWithAvon]

You can skip the stencil step if you draw well. Using gray values then painting over them helps develop the color values oftentimes. Thanks for watching.