• 
  2011

  Mar 26
  6
  Uncle Bob

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  Misty Morning – Pastels with Charcoal

  Another misty scene. The charcoal sky should be easy to spot here and the sharp edges of the trees were obtained by adding pastels with a wet brush
  tags: charcoal | Hard Pastels
   

Comments

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  Candace 10:38 pm on March 26, 2011 | #

  Great effect! Sun’s so bright I need my shades. Good stuff as always.

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  Nikira 9:14 am on March 27, 2011 | #

  Wonderful effect. How you apply pastel with wet brush?

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  Uncle Bob 11:08 am on March 27, 2011 | #

  Thank you Candace, for sending this. I’m glad you like the stuff I throw at folks on this site.

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  Uncle Bob 11:24 am on March 27, 2011 | #

  Hi Nikira. This was the result of a fair amount of experimentation after my visit to the “sketching exhibition of old French Masters” – BTW Did you get my message asking you to confirm you address if you want a catalogue of paintings from this show?
  Anyway here’s how I did the above scene.
  I first of all marked the sun’s position by lightly drawing around a coin.
  I took some hard black pastel off the stick with a damp brush and mixed up a “slurry”, with clean water, in a very small container (actually a plastic milk bottle top)
  I then used this to keep the brush damp by constantly dipping it into the mixture then lifting more, neat black pastel from the stick. I had already found that just putting a wet brush, wetted with CLEAN water, straight onto the stick doesn’t work as the pastel stick is very dry and absorbs the water. It doesn’t seem to absorb the slurry mix as much. I used this to paint the trees using different sizes of brushes.
  I added the sky by gently drawing light charcoal over the trees and sky area but avoiding the sunlit parts. The charcoal will not disturb the pastel marks if you are careful. If this becomes a problem use oil pastels which are more permanent.
  Lastly the ground area was filled in with black charcoal and the whole scene sprayed with fixative to avoid smudging. Don’t use specialized spray fixative for this. I buy ladies hairspray which is cheaper. It makes your picture smell a bit – for a while but is easier of the purse. My art shop sells fixative for around £9.00 for a 200ml can. The local supermarket sells the same size of hairspray for £2.00 – cheaper if you buy in bulk.
  Hope this helps.

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  Nikira 11:17 pm on March 27, 2011 | #

  Thank you very much, Bob. I didn’t get it, you message, but thank you very much, you are too kind. I realized my pastel is oil base, so can’t try it yet. I got this antique pastel Hesper Pas after someone on Twitter said its amazing, still trying to figure out how to combine my beloved ink and pastel. May be on bigger size paper?

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  Uncle Bob 1:43 am on March 28, 2011 | #

  No problem Nikira. I’ll resend the email now. Please let me know if you haven’t heard anything – Bob

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