Dark to Light (How to make your pastels stand out)
In my first pastel class, I remember learning a basic method of blocking in darks and lights when we started a painting. Later, the teacher mentioned that pastels are meant to be painted with lights on top of darks. I always seemed to run through my light-colored pastels about twice as quickly as I used my darks, mostly because I felt like I lost my lights as I worked. What I eventually learned was how important those darks were in establishing contrast. "Jardin" 9 x 12 Chalk pastel on flat canvas Click here to view large or purchase In the painting above, using pastels dipped in water gave them a darker finish, which helped highlight those lighter areas of the piece. In the following painting, you can see how I got a little too excited about the color and had to work on the darks and lights to rein it back in: Stage 1: Woo hoo! Color! Umm, where are the darks? Stage 2: More darks added Stage 3: Adding lights on top of d...