Choosing the paper colour - Pastel painting course 3 

I'm so pleased it was helpful. Thank you for taking the time to comment :)

It was so nice to have you in class- you seem to have a very good eye for choosing the paper colour already!

Happy to share- thanks for watching:)

I'm so glad it helped you Caroline. :)

Sorry! Accidentally sent before finishing. My current goal is to soft pastel paint a human portrait. My question is do you have experience painting hi

Happened again!! Sorry!!! My question is, do you have experience painting human portraits on Mi Teints Touch, and using mixed media? Or using any kind of solvent? If so what did you think of the results? I really appreciate your knowledge of the different pastel papers. Sincerely

@@lindawakiyama1603 I'm glad you can now get this paper in Japan. I have done some portraits on the Mi Tientes Touch paper and if you want to use solvents it will be fine. I regularly use alcohol to create pastel washes as my base layer and it works beautifully. You can also use watercolour or acrylic ink washes under your soft pastel. The Touch paper also works well with charcoal and pencil. I've also done portraits on the thinner Mi Tientes pastel paper ( no grit ) and find that works well if you don't intend to use solvent or mixed media- although you can use c harcoal and pencil .Hope this helps:)

@@LindyWhittonStudio Thank you so much for your answers after my messy questions! It will really help me for this project. Sincerely Linda

How nice of you:) I'm glad you're enjoying the videos.

so glad you found it helpful:)

You're very welcome.

You're very welcome!

Glad it was helpful!

Welcome to the wonderful world of pastels! Hope you enjoy the journey:)

Really glad you find them helpful.

Glad you found it useful :)

Glad it was helpful!

+kim baker Thanks Kim! I did wonder if I'd overdone the examples so I'm glad to hear it helped you.

Sharondale thanks! I love earrings and make quite a few of my own. A girl can never have too many earrings!

Glad you enjoy the videos Beca:)

Rose Che I'm so pleased my video helped you! enjoy painting with pastels. it's a lot of fun.

continue !! I am trying watch all your video, but I follow the number of lesson, it seems missing some chapter. The technique you teach and explain, It's easy for me to understand. I watch many video on RU-vid to learn more about Pastel. At the moment, I found out yours are the best for me.

Rose Che . I'm so glad you're finding my videos helpful.

Thanks !

Prego!

The paper is Colourfix Original and it has a coloured primer screen printed on 300gsm watercolour paper. The company is Art Spectrum and they make a big range of colours. Another good brand is Mi Tientes Tex - although I think it might have a different name now.

Thanks for your kind comments. Here's a few tips that might answer some of your questions. It's better to paint with your board upright so any dust falls down into a dust tray your place under the bottom of the painting board. Too much blending and smudging will make mud- try starting with a light pressure with harder pastels and then add layers of softer pastels. Using a gritty texture paper like Kitty Wallis, Colourfix, Canson Mi Tientes Tex etc will allow you to create many layers without losing dust. The cheaper brands like Mungyo will create more dust. The more expensive brands are easier to work with. Mungyo make a good handmade pastel that is cheaper than other similar quality handmade brands. I find soft pastels easier to layer than the harder nupastels and contes. Enjoy your pastel journey!

Thank you so much for this; it really helps, and I did watch your subsequent video after I asked my question here, which also helped answer part of my 'plight and the cardboard tray is a fantastic idea (including placing the paper flat against a wall, even almost leaning forward a little so the dust doesn't drop onto the actual paper' (long comment here, sorry!) I do LOVE pastels, but being new to the medium, I went for the cheaper 1/2 stick Mungyo ('artists') brand, unfortunately not the handmade brand, because the USD and shipping costs to Australia are horrendous, and these products are often harder to find here - with shpping and the poor aussie dollar, its almost double to pay for everything (and I have a LOT in my saved shopping cart, wating ... that '1-click button buy' button is just too tempting Anyway, apologies, off on a tangent there - you're right, they certainly do create a lot of dust! But what amazing coverage and colours and blending, wow! Pastel painting can look so realistic (or more loose and abstract - I like both), and I really love how you show the basic shading and outlines/under-paintings first, which is possibly when i would give up .... but then the increasing level of details and form come in and oh my!!! Its a matter of getting past that initial 'ugly' phase(?), practice practice, self-belief too. Because I don't have hard pastels yet, I just started my first practice with the soft ones (in addition to an earlier attempt at the pastel pencils), and my heart sank a little, along with the dust :P, also because they're not very opaque at times, if wanting a crisper line of white (or lighter colour) over dark/black (for this particular brand) .... and when I smudged them, often the colour 'lifted' and muted - definitely the wrong paper too - very forgiving medium though, because I could just 'restart what i was doing - you are right, the softer ones do layer wonderfully -and right again - I think I overdid it and just continued to layer and blend and layer and blend to see what happened - some parts of great 'abstracty' colours cane out; the rest - 'mud'! .... my child-self was coming out to 'play' and get used to the medium - so I think a lot of that was my fault, and the dragging of my hand on the right side of the paper without realising it - "put your glasses on Megan'!! Darn though .... my budget is limited and here in Australia, its harder to get hold of good art paper, and its also much more expensive (one place was charging $100 each for two types of basic watercolour paper, which is only about $8-$10 or so in the US - I nearly fell over backwards! $100 for 12-15 sheetA of !4 size, more basic watercolour paper?? omgolly gosh!!! hehe ... I think I might try and make my own, based on some of your advice too - collecting lots of boxes/cardboard and cutting it up - and hopefully it will work if i prime thicker paper, with textured gesso (and coloured with acrylic paint)? .... until I can get good enough to justify the greater expensive - but I will try one 'proper' pastel paper to get a better idea - hopefully I can find a pad of Canson Me-Teintes for less than $50! :) - and I still need to get the harder pastels (just ordered the carbathello pastel pencils, 60 set on Amazon special, based on recommendations and short demos of Jason Morgan, wildflife artist (who also noted how vital the paper was). I also have a small set of the Derwent pastel pencils, which are a little more crumbly and less crisp/opaque (I think!), but pencils, great for the detail ..... and would like as many colours as possible, so I don't regret it later perhaps (thereby needing to buy another larger set - duplicates won't hurt of course!), ...... is dependent on the types of paintings I want to do - ALL of them! everything ... trees, whales etc ...seascapes, landscapes, skies, still lifes, portraitures, flowers/botanicals, abstracts, and and and :D I wish I didn't feel the need to have it all 'now'! You've been collecting for years - not sure what the difference is between contes and nupastels are though, because I also read somewhere that contes were 'conte 'crayons', which is a bit misleading? I really appreciate you responding - You are my favourite pastel artist to follow and I'm compiling all your videos together into a playlist :-) and going by some previews of courses I've seen online (such as Udemy), you could charge a small fortune for what you teach!! (and apologies for my lengthy comment!) - So much to learn, so much i want to know and am looking forward to progressing especially after seeing your works! WOW - its so ironic - I couldn't stand the sound of chalk on a blackboard at school, or the powdered mess when throwing the 'dusters' around! .... and here I am, now loving them, won't be wearing white though! (can you tell I'm getting a tad passionate?!) hehe

I think all our minds work a bit differently🙂 I always tone my canvas with orange or sienna before I start and really don't like starting on white. Good luck with the coloured paper!

I'm not sure re the music. My husband has a huge collection of music he plays all day so sometimes you can hear a little in the background if he has it a bit louder than usual.

bill hansen Not sure of the grit number but I'd describe it as medium.

Hi deborah, I mostly use sanded paper Colourfix Smooth or Original. I know what you're saying. It's quite difficult to completely cover a very dark unsanded paper with say a very pale sky. You need to build up as amany layers as you can and let the pastels blend to create a good coverage. I find that kind of subject easier on a sanded paper and I will use a midtone and then an alcohol wash to build up the darker passages before I head in with the pastels. If you let some of the darkunsanded paper show throughout the whole painting it can be very effective even in a light coloured area ... try looking at Maxwell Wilks work. He always uses black unsanded paper .

@@LindyWhittonStudio ok, thank you for the information. I didn't think of an alcohol underpainting. I haven't done that yet, need the right kind of paper. I'll check into colorfix. Have a good night 😊

Sharondale I prefer heavyweight papers especially for large paintings. I use the same two brands of gritted paper. Mi Tientes and Colorfix. They,re very similar but have different colours and sizes. I pretty much use one of these papers for all my subjects. You can buy them from any good art shop or online.

Yes, it is. I also use Art Spectrum Colourfix Original and Smooth. Sorry for the delay in answering.

if you look in my channel you will find a video on Fixing and Storing pastels that will give you the information you're asking about :)

J'utilise Art Spectrum Colorfix et Canson Mi Teintes Tex. Je suis content que vous ayez trouvé la vidéo utile;

I mainly use Mi Tientes sanded paper. I like the colour range and they have a smaller size that's great for the paintings I want to ship overseas and then a larger size I can use for my big paintings or just cut up to suit. I also use Art Spectrum which is an Australian sanded brand. I rarely use anything but sanded paper as it helps keep all the pastel layers on. There are some really good American brands I'd like to try but they don't sell them locally and it's expensive to ship.

Sharondale I mostly use Mi Tientes TEX paper which is a heavyweight paper preprimed with a coloured gritty primer. Sometimes I prime left over matboard with coloured acrylic with added pumice grit. You can also buy coloured, gritted primer to paint over any paper or board and make your own.

Millie Simic I use Art Spectrum Colorfix paper all the time. Sometimes I prefer a colour in the MiTientes range and sometimes I will prefer a Colorfix paper. I find the Art Spectrum pastels a little hard for my liking. I love really soft pastels! they do have some great colours for Australian landscapes and I do like their very light tints. If you prefer a harder pastel Art Spectrum are a good choice.

Thanks Lindy, and your videos are great!