Jessica Crabtree

Pastels over printouts

Here’s something interesting to try for those of you working from a reference picture.

Using an image or photo of your choice, make a printed copy on regular office paper and use it as a guide to paint over using pastels. Treat it as a pre-existing line drawing; if it is a grayscale print, think of it as a sophisticated coloring book page giving you a blank check to create the color and feel of the picture, without having to worry about composition. If the print is in color, it can become a challenging exercise in matching the shading and and texture of the original. For a little variety, you might want to try using textured or colored paper for your print.

This is an easy, creative and adventurous way of becoming familiar with your next subject photo. It’s also a very good method for newbies who are just getting the feel of chalk, or as a fun art project for kids. And with the cost of your canvas at next to nothing, it’s easy to let the imagination (and fingers!) run free without stressing out over perfection. It even has potential as a mixed-media application. Just remember before you invest any major effort into it that standard copy paper is NOT acid-free – be sure to use archival-quality material for any serious artwork project.

Blending, layering, & texture

When it comes to pastel on suede, there’s one thing I’d emphasize more than any other – BASE COAT. It’s the one technique that exploits all the potential and flexibility that pastels have to offer.

Base coating, as I mentioned before, accomplishes three things:
a) it primes the surface of the suede, making the chalk easier to blend
b) it keeps the suede from showing through
c) it adds rich undertones that enhance the coloring

Think of your picture as a landscape laid out in three parts – shadow, highlight, and undertones (dividing it mentally this way makes it easier to map out your project). We work from darkest to lightest using the base coat technique:

1. Find the darkest areas – the areas with deepest shadows and strongest contrasts. The base coat in these places will be black. (Don’t worry if black is not meant to be the final color – it can be covered later.)
2. Find the main colored areas (e.g., the flesh in a portrait, or the fur of an animal) and choose a couple of base colors – no more than two or three at the most – to serve as a foundation. It’s good to choose a soft pastel with heavy pigment, because it will lose some of intensity when worked into the suede, and once again you’ll want to use the richness of tone to your advantage.

   For portraits, I base coat most of the face with brilliant red ochre. The subject starts out looking a little like a jack-o’-lantern, but it works!

Left: Comanche Boy in the awkward half-way stage.


3. Find the brightest areas – the most intense highlights and the places with lightest pigment. Leave these blank at first. Bright whites and similar colors are most radiant the less you fuss with them – and the lighter the chalk, the harder it is to blend. Besides, saving the light areas for last ensures that they won’t collect other pigments while you work. (For more tips on working with light chalks, see my other posts in the Artist’s Tip Bag category.)

Depending on the subject, you may need to add a second coat when you first blend the base layer into the pile. I use my fingers for this except where the small space requires a smaller tool, like a favorite paper tortillion. These are great for smoothing in a nice clean edge or corner.

When it comes time to blend your layers, you can opt for a smooth finish or a “blended look.” For a fine texture, use a paintbrush with the bristles clipped short to loosen the chalk gently, then smooth it out again for an airbrushed look. (This is a great method to combine pastels for that hard-to-match color.) Otherwise, keep your layers distinct to let the nuances of your layers show through and the strokes give an impression of texture.

Below: Combination smooth & textured finish in Mexican Wolf

More: Tips on texture – gradient, contrast, and pattern

Painting a Wolf in Pastels, Part 2

(To catch up on the project from the beginning, check out this post:
Sneak Peek: Mexican Wolf – Day 1)

Now let me show you how we got this far – lots more in-progress photos below (click any of the pictures to enlarge)

I left off work last time with a good start on the head, so I’m moving on to the rest of the body.

Just like I did before, I start out with black, shading in the darkest areas. (More on the advantages of this later.) When this done I can come in with a base color, in this case one of my primary browns. I go over lightly and blend this first layer in with my fingers.

For each color that appears in the fur, I apply another full layer so it doesn’t show up in isolated patches. Blending together the browns, reddish-browns, yellows, grays, and beiges (like the ones you can see laid out in the photos) makes it much easier to recreate the texture and color diversity of real fur. I can just draw out whichever tones I need to emphasize in a particular area.

Notice again, I’m working from dark to light, as I mentioned before. Only later, after the other colors are blended in, do I apply anything like white or beige, because I find it really hard to work with. If used correctly it can come across looking soft and fluffy, the way I’ve tried to show here.

You can see the layers really starting to come together in the following pictures. I’ve added Nupastels 253 (cocoa brown) and 223 (burnt umber) to my palette for undertones; 233 (raw sienna) for golden highlights; charcoal gray; and 276 (buff beige) as the brightest layer. This project has a fairly limited color range – in all I won’t need more than a dozen or so chalks.

Right: The blunt edge of a Nupastel is perfect for making the short, choppy strokes that imitate layers of thick fur.

Another advantage to this kind of layering is that with the darks underneath, anytime you mess with the chalk you’ll get some nice rich undertones showing through (that’s why you’ll want to choose your base coat carefully).

One of my favorite techniques – particularly when doing hair or fur – is using a tortillion, or paper stump, to pull the darker layers out between the lighter hairs. This is much easier than trying to add dark chalk between the light areas to make them stand out, and running the risk of blurring the edges.

Think of it as a kind of “reverse pencil.” In general, I like to use tortillions in lieu of my fingers in any places too small for me to work.

Left: A well-loved paper tortillion.

Next up: A little closer to the finish – finishing the fur, paws, and small details.

This is the first installment of my new series filed under the Artist’s Tip Bag category. You can keep posted with the latest updates by using this post’s RSS feed, or by subscribing to my free monthly e-newsletter.

> When you say “pastel on suede” exactly what do you mean? What materials are involved?

I use mostly soft pastel sticks – brands like Sennelier and Prismacolor, occasionally a few pencils.

Instead of paper I use suede matboard as a painting surface. It’s a heavy paper board just like regular picture frame mat, but on the top surface is a thin, carpet-like layer of velvety suede. It’s this fine layer of pile that enables you to “rub” the chalk down into the suede, instead of just sitting on the surface as it would with paper.

(Product photos from DickBlick.com.)

> How is the suede different from paper?

Using chalk on paper with a heavy tooth gives you a more textured feel; suede on the other hand lets you blend in a color – even several colors – and have a very smooth, even finish that almost resembles airbrush. But there are still plenty of ways you can add variety to the texture. It’s very versatile. And unlike paper, it can hold quite a bit of chalk – and the more chalk you’re able to use, the more realism you can achieve.

> Where can I get suede matboard?

This can be obtained from a local picture framer or ordered through an art supply store. I get mine through Dick Blick. It comes in many colors; my preference is black. Whatever color you pick, it has the advantage of a naturally mottled texture which is a great backdrop in itself.

It comes in large sheets measuring 32″ by 40″ – you can use the entire canvas if you paint big. If you have the tools you can cut it into any number of smaller pieces, or have a local framer cut it down to size.

An important thing to remember is that you can’t store unused pieces by standing them upright or leaning them against a wall. They will warp and bend under their own weight, creating major complications in painting. A warped matboard is pretty much unusable.

> How does pastel on suede compare to other mediums?

I would say it compares very favorably. Not being an expert with paints (my previous background is mainly graphite/charcoal pencil) I can’t elaborate on the finer details. But on the whole I find it to be a very forgiving and versatile medium with enormous potential, and one that requires relatively few supplies. (continue reading…)

Using white chalk on suede

White chalk is very difficult to work with on suede because it has such low binder and pigment content. White pastels of both hard and soft varieties are essentially just chalk – and consequently they look and feel chalky. Compared to other colors they almost never layer or blend well.

Your best bet is to start off with a base coat of a color other than white – for instance a rich dark gray – depending on what undertones you want. The base layer of pastel will act as a primer to make blending and molding on the suede possible.

Using this technique, you can develop your painting without losing the pastels’ flexibility. Use the base coat to your advantage to help with the shading, and just add the white tints as a final top coat. They will show up much brighter and the suede mat won’t peek through.

Top Chalks for Portraits

Over time I’ve worked out my favorite combination of chalks to use for portraits (see examples below) in order to achieve a rich skin tone with some highlighting and dark, dramatic shadows. Here’s my list of must-have chalks:

Black
I always apply black first. It helps outline the portrait and gives a boundary to work with, and still shows up even after several layers of blending. I use my Prismacolor Nupastel black for this (I always keep two boxes just of this black on hand, since I go through them so fast) because they are semi-hard and you get a firm clean edge, good for outlining. But you can use really any texture of black for the under coat.

Sennelier #004 Red Ochre (“Black Brown”)
I use this as a wash over the entire flesh area. You don’t see this in the final product, but it serves two important purposes – 1) it keeps the matboard from showing through (especially important if you use dark suede) and 2) it acts as a base coat when blending the chalks, to keep the tone from looking washed-out. I’m told this typical of the oil painting process – which I wouldn’t know, not being an authority on oils, but it makes complete sense for any medium that uses heavy layering. The bright red wash looks bizarre in the beginning, but it’s well worth it.

Art Spectrum V552 (“Burnt Umber”)
This is the other under-layer or chalk. I apply this very light color wherever I want to show areas of strong highlight or reflection. If you are layering your chalks, DO NOT PUT THE HIGHLIGHT COLOR ON TOP; using white or light-colored pastel over the skin tone to add brightness only makes it look dull and pasty. Apply it as an undercoat and blend the flesh tone over it. This way it shows up very smooth and gives a nice subtle glow, rather than looking chalky. The stronger or brighter you want the light, the thicker you apply the umber, so it doesn’t blend away when you apply flesh tone.

Sennelier #3712 (“Gamboge”)
This is my second choice for highlighting, but I use it sparingly because Sennelier’s soft pastels are so thick and clay-like. Too much and you risk filling up the suede pile and not being able to layer. I use it only where I need some very dense highlighting.

Sennelier #89 (“Venetian Red”)
This is a lush, luminous orange color I use as a mid-tone in conjunction with highlighting to keep the flesh from looking washed-out. It’s rich texture and vibrancy make it incredibly pleasant to work with – but a little goes a very long way, so I never apply it directly. Just smudge a little on your finger and brush it on the suede.

Nupastel #353-P (“Cordovan”)
This is one of my favorite colors for dark flesh tone. It is semi-hard but extremely smooth so I can blend over several layers of chalk with it. A good coat of this really starts to bring the face to life. It is especially useful for shadows where you don’t want the black chalk to make the skin lose its color (skin under a shadow looks redder, not grayer).

Nupastel #273-P (“Tuscan Red”)
A second shade of flesh tone that’s little lighter, a bit closer to pink. I layer this over much of the face and use it to transition between the darker areas and the bright highlights. Because these chalks don’t go on very thick, the pigments are not as intense as they appear in color swatches, making them much more flexible. They can be as solid or as subtle as you want, so at this stage I start working with the texture in much more detail.

Of course you’ll need a few other colors to finish your portrait, but these are a pretty good starting combination. My Sneak Peek: In Progress category shows portraits in various stages of completion, so you can get a good idea of the process.

Both of these finished portraits, Lummi (16×20) and Crow (24×30) were made with the same assortment of pastels (click to see full-size images.)

See more like these on my Gallery page.

I’ve started a new portrait, Acoma, on 18″ x 24″ black suede board, from an Edward Curtis photo of a Pueblo man. Below is the same portrait one day earlier. It’s still in the first stages (face first, then hair, clothing/accessories, and final touch-ups), but I’ll be updating with photos as I go along.

Check out my Latest page to see them all step-by-step.

Blend and layer different pastel colors to achieve different textures.

With soft pastels, the lighter the color the lower the pigment-to-binder ratio. Pastel colors closer to white contain more chalk mineral, which is extremely fine and blends very smoothly. Darker colors, on the other hand, contain more pigment and less binder, and when applied over a layer of lighter chalk the resulting texture will be coarser. Conversely, lighter chalks applied over dark layers will achieve a smooth, even appearance.

You can layer your pastel colors differently depending on the final finish you want.