You are a born teacher. I have worked with watercolor for many years (about 20 and counting) and now am loving pastels. I sometimes do a watercolor underpainting, which gives me some wonderful unexpected effects on sanded paper. And sometimes i do a pastel underpainting washed down with alcohol. It just depends on how I'm feeling that day.. love your approach to assigning a value to each shape in your thumbnail. That was really helpful to figure it out! I have subscribed to your site and plan to work my way through all of your excellent classes. You are a jewel.
Good day from Australia. I’m delighted to have found you after recently deciding to try my hand at pastels. A great tutorial, many thanks for your kick start! Warm regards!
My favorite part is where you do mention that you aren’t copying the photo exactly, this is what makes it your own and unique. As someone learning to use the pastels more, this video was a fantastic instruction and one of the best I’ve seen: thank you!!!
I’m very new at pastels and just purchased some mungyo but not sure where to start. Your explanation is so clear and easy to understand. Great instructions! I’m subscribing to learn more from you ❤️❤️
What a great tutorial! I followed along using oil pastels (first time working that medium) and I got wonderful results! I'm not sure the alcohol wash was a good choice for my oil pastels, but I didn't realize they were different from the soft pastels you're using here until after I tried it out. I ended up with a lovely painting anyhow!
I just want you to know how much I appreciate your tutorial! You opened up part of my art brain that I've never used before, (being looser!!) I wish I could show you my done picture. Again, thank you!
I’ve watched a whole lot of art tips & tricks videos, but yours here takes the cake! It’s making me think I just might be able to get over my fear of the blank page and give me some confidence even in me earlier learning phase. Thank you for this!
Omg Karen, your lessons are gamechangers for me. I learn so much from you. Thank you for sharing your techniques. Every stroke you put down makes sense. I am a really big fan!
YES! At first I had no idea what the heck she was doing, then once the alcohol was added I could actually see the picture and thought it was already so much better than any painting I could do! (I guess that’s because the values were correct and the composition was there.)
Dear Madam Margulis, this is wonderful, you're Genius...and you teach very kindly...Thank you madam...my question is can't we use thinner instead of alcohol ?...Good Luck and May God bless you !
What stops me is my apparent inability to see beyond the photo. In this, I am sure that I'm not alone. It helped that you, at one point, removed the photo from sight. It stuck me as a brave and confident move. Like sky-diving for the first time in tandem with a veteran of the sport. Then, letting go of his hand to direct your own career.
I am delighted to find this tutorial by one of my favorite artists! I have a small lavender painting that is so beautiful. I love your work and thanks for sharing your techniques.
This under painting is something that was never used when I took art classes way back when. I always loved pastels. One thing I noticed on my old paintings,-pastels-oil watercolor-, is that I need to concentrate more on learning value. You are doing an excellent job on reinforcing this. TY
Thank you so much for sharing even though you are experiencing a great hardship with your mother in law. Prayers for you and your family. Your work is joyous and sunshine to many 🙏🌻🌞
E vous découvre et vous m'avez conquise par votre pédagogie sur les valeurs, les couleurs par rapport à la profondeur.... Merci pour ce cours magistral. Je suis restée jusqu'au bout et je vais même le revisionner. De Paris... Merci pour votre générosité.
I know this is going to sound offensive. Perhaps it is offensive. But it strikes me that you do a lot of fiddling around and covering over what you've already drawn. Doesn't this discourage the beauty of line, and of making marks that are bold, definitive, and striking?
I am just at the beginning of the video and did not understand well the name of the paper ( English is not my mother tongue 😊). Could you please write it under your video. Thank you very much 🎉
Another question regarding impressionism art. Would this be considered art that isnt very detailed? Ive always had such a hard time with details. Im such a perfectionist n the more i try to perfect details the worse i make my painting
Thank you, I have only started to draw over the lockdown, but I wanted to learn more especially working with pastels. Your videos are fantastic and have given me some very helpful ideas.
This is awesome. Thank you for sharing this valuable painting lesson. I paint with oil pastels. I am not professional yet. But I am on my way. 😊 Does alcohol wash work on oil pastels?
I agree that this is the best demo I have seen. The use of the blue green for distance, the four shades of a color , and the blocking in of the value shapes first all seem to be secret knowledge I was missing! Thank you so much!
I started using this approach about a year ago when I first found this video and it really helped a lot!! I even added my own extra part to The No Fail Approach (3:04 - 4:17) where instead of taking the original photo down, I would go in and digitally blur the details until it's primarily the colours and vague shapes. This way I can also colour match while looking at the grey scale as well. Plus, this has helped me understand how to mix-match and blend colours together to achieve what I want since I am working with extremely low budget supplies. Thank you so much for sharing all of your helpful and beautiful art videos. You have not only helped in my art journey but also in my journey to improve my physical and mental health, especially through the pandemic. Please take care and remember that you will always shine the the starlight you are. Blessed be.
What a great simply stated dem!! ! have taught children and adults for over 50 years... sharing the joy of oils, acrylics collage and most recent water color.... but not much pastel!This was so fun and exciting!! Thanks for sharing your wonderful creative expertise!!!
Thank you for your effort. I have two issues, it was a bit long and I lost focus. The second one is that the final result was very -how can I say- surrealistic, maginative, impressionistic? to relate with the concepts you described. Sorry for my ignorance. It would be really good to see it in a realistic scenery painting. Thank you!
I’ve never used pastels, and this was my first stop…I made the right decision! So much here that can translate into any medium, but so nicely done and makes me want to try my hand at pastels! Subscribed!!
OH MY GOODNESS. I fell asleep, cause I was so tired and you were wonderfully relaxing to watch. I never saw the mess, it was always interesting to look at. So enjoyable. So inspiring. SUBSCRIBED. Thank you.
I love your approach…it makes great sense. I’m just exploring the idea of trying pastels, but I can use many aspects of your no-fail approach I’m my acrylic and oil work.
Thank you so ooooo much!!! Got some really expensive pastels and was too scared to use them. You have led me into a whole new adventure!!!!!! Love what you do xxxxxxxx
Great tutorial. I made a New Year's resolution to try pastels. I have not taken the plunge yet, just researching. Your videos are very informative which I really need at this point. I really liked the video where you critiqued the under $50 starter set. One question I have is, how do you frame a pastel painting? I've heard it is complicated and can be expensive.
Glad it was helpful! Framing isn't hard and there are a few ways you can do it some are more complicated than others. I shared some information on framing on my Patreon Page. Thanks for watching!
Thanks for this video. Your explaination was very nice for a very beginner like me. I wonder could we use baby oil instead of alcohol at oil based pastels ? And if we don't have fixative, could we omitted that? I don't have much tools because i was novice at drawing.
Thanks heaps Karen, will definitely watch later today. Love your work and the confidence of your expressive marks, you remind everyone art is and should be fun too. 👍❤🤗
Hi karen. Today, i got the ordered pastels from the online store. I got so happy as i wanted to just dig in and start making amazing landscapes like the ones in your videos. To my surprise, i found it very hard as i have zero experience in art prior to this nightmarish of a try, the end result was so bad that i put the pastels away and i wanted to freakin cry as i was expecting a lot more. Maybe it was because i was trying to learn from a book but now as i see your videos i actually get my questions cleared as i wasn't able to, earlier reading the books. I have another ray of hope. Tomorrow i am gonna start again but this time, i will delve in with a mindset to practice and learn. Thanks. I may have many questions along the way. How can i ask you those questions personally? I will appreciate the help. Thanks again.
Congratulations on getting started! It is good that you have the mindset of practice! Learning how to paint with pastels is a journey and it is important to take small steps and enjoy the journey! I can try to answer here when I see your comments. I hope you will consider doing my Patreon group. It is $4 a month but there are much more lessons and videos and I have many posts for beginners to pastel. Consider joining us! www.patreon.com/karenmargulis
Such a gorgeous demo. A point around 23:17 surprised me as suddenly depth appeared. It was almost Disney-like and a light bulb went off about the process!! Thank you for being such an excellent teacher!!
Thank you for sharing your wonderful talent. I just got my first set of chalk pastels and the results are - lets just say - horrifying. The pastels are such fun to play I hope, with your help, to improve. Thank you again for such informative and inspiring instruction.
Your dialog is fantastic. Letting me into your head a bit helps with the thought process. I really enjoyed this demonstration and lived the colors. Gorgeous. Thank you.
Thankyou so much for your sharing. I have started creating abstract acrylics and have thought about soft pastels. I will definitely incorporate them into my process.
