Using Pastels in Autumn

By Susie Hartley.

With the Autumn leaves blown away now by Storm Burt, it’s safe to say I have collected a fair few crispy leaves to draw just in the nick of time!

I always enjoy this time of year, although constantly adapting to the change of weather, but it also allows provides me with interesting subject matter, in this case, leaves.

I began by using simple linear method to get a feel for the material and my subject matter. I did three studies at different angles. Approximately 10 minutes per study, 30 minutes overall, changing the colour pastel each time. This was on grey A3 sugar paper.

The second exercise was again working initially with a linear study and then enhanced using a soft pastel working into it tonally and adding blending techniques and rubbing out to create highlights. I suggest using only two pastels allows you to become more confident when using colour as you are not giving yourself too many problems to solve. This was on grey A3 sugar paper and was a 30 minute study.

I then moved onto working with the pastels on black A3 sugar paper. This was a study of the same leaf but this time using three soft pastels whilst using the blending technique again to enhance the forms and structures of the leaf. This was another 30 minute study.

If you’d like to try using charcoal or pastel I’d highly recommend beginning exploring with line and tone on a piece of paper, to get a feel for how pastels work. Explore blending with your finger (or ear bud), using a rubber, highlighting and layering which can provide an array of texture and tones!

I'd love to see your outcomes, please share them with me via Instagram or Facebook.

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