A New Lesson To Inspire You!

August 23, 2023 by Alain Picard in Art Instruction

Are you looking for inspiration today?
Look no further!

I’ve got a brand-new video lesson for you to get those creative juices flowing. Let’s paint a vine ripe red tomato together so we can enjoy the richness of painting with red as we practice using deep values and saturated colors. This luscious little painting will take you less than an hour to create and provide you with a wonderful jolt of inspiration.

Red is an inspiring color, but it can be deceiving to paint. If it gets too light, we'll lose valuable color impact.

In this video, we’ll cover how to keep your color values on target, so your vine ripe tomato looks deliciously rich and red. Are you ready to paint a red tomato together? Join one of our upcoming classes or workshops where we explore different techniques together.

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The Secret To Bold And Fresh Color!

November 25, 2022 by Alain Picard in Art Instruction

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to come along side you and encourage your creative growth throughout the year. It fills me with such fulfillment and joy to share painterly techniques and creative insights that help you flourish so you can make an impact through your art.🙌

I want to express my gratitude to you by sharing a lesson on how to get to bold, expressive color in your paintings filled with freshness and excitement. Would you like to know the secret? Color studies!

Enjoy this video lesson on Color Studies and know that I am so grateful we can share our creative journey together.

Ready to jump into more lessons and more hands-on techniques like these, join us in one of our Pastel Painting courses where we dig deeper into various pastel techniques such as these.

Be inspired!
Alain

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Pastel Underpainting Techniques

March 10, 2015 by Alain Picard in Art Instruction, Pastel Materials

I frequently receive questions from students and other aspiring artists regarding what underpainting techniques I use. It’s a great question, and I only wish it were a simple one to answer. An underpainting wash is a very exciting method when using sanded surfaces that can support aqueous materials. Be sure to use prepared surfaces like UART, Wallis, PastelMat, Canson Touch, or other primed surfaces which can withstand the use of washes. There are a variety of ways to under paint and achieve exciting results. Here are just a few:

Watercolor Wash Using a small watercolor set and a flat or round watercolor brush, paint with watercolor materials on the blank sanded paper to achieve your desired effect. Then work over the wash with dry pastel.
Alcohol Wash Use denatured alcohol or 90-percent isopropyl alcohol and a flat watercolor brush to wash over dry pastel pigment, which will dissolve and stain the color into the paper. This method dries very quickly and creates beautiful effects.
Mineral Spirit Wash This works in much the same way as an alcohol wash but takes a little longer to dry.

To learn more about using underpainting techniques in pastel, and see me put them to work in step-by-step instructional paintings, look for my upcoming book, Mastering Pastel, available for purchase in the STORE this May.

How To Sharpen Hard Pastels

March 07, 2014 by Alain Picard in Pastel Materials

Sharpening Hard Pastels can be an art in itself and make a difference in your mark-making. Many have contacted me, asking how I sharpen my hard pastels. This video will show you how! Learn my simple technique for sharpening your hard pastels and improving the details of your pastel paintings.