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Rob's Art Lessons: Easy Pastel Demo - Pears
http://robs-art-lessons.blogspot.com/2014/09/easy-pastel-demo-pears.html
Saturday, September 13, 2014. Easy Pastel Demo - Pears. Charcoal stick or pencil. Pastels (any brand) red, green, orange, blue, white. Charcoal or drawing paper with vellum or laid surface. A pear, real or fake, to draw from. Charcoal sketches to start. Once I got the second sketch, I repeated it two more times on the page and then started using the pastels. I finished my bluesorange one first, but did the red-green one stopping half way to show that stage. So now let's carry this farther even if I'm usi...
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Rob's Art Lessons: March 2012
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Monday, March 12, 2012. Colored Pencil Shading and More. Today's art lesson is on colored pencil shading, especially skin tones and cylindrical objects. What do a brick silo and someone's face have in common? Well, both of them need to look three dimensional in your drawings. You'd be surprised how dark the shadows are compared to the highlights. Below the first shading bars are the ones with the refined technique of Little Circular Strokes. This technique you just don't ever press hard. You just...If yo...
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Rob's Art Lessons: May 2012
http://robs-art-lessons.blogspot.com/2012_05_01_archive.html
Saturday, May 12, 2012. How to Shade Flower Petals in Watercolor. Shading flower petals in watercolor is easier than it looks. Controlling edges so that some edges are clean and hard while others are soft and gradual takes combining Wet in Wet techniques (for loose, soft flowing edges) and wet on dry - by a very simple process. When the petal or leaf is finished, let it dry completely before doing an adjacent one. I moved from doing this big petal to painting the orange petals, then while they dried ...
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Rob's Art Lessons: February 2012
http://robs-art-lessons.blogspot.com/2012_02_01_archive.html
Wednesday, February 29, 2012. Blocking In, Blending and Light. Blocking In is a technique often used in pastels. The general idea works in any medium but this article focuses on soft pastels techniques. Simplify the forms of your painting to big shapes. Ignore details and small areas unless those are in the focal area or demand reserved white. Above is my block-in for "Lady Sunshine," a tabby cat painting. I did this one for a Pastel Spotlight challenge on http:/ www.wetcanvas.com. So I deliberately left...
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Rob's Art Lessons: January 2015
http://robs-art-lessons.blogspot.com/2015_01_01_archive.html
Tuesday, January 27, 2015. 9" x 12" pastel on paper. This post is mostly for new pastelists, though old timers and experts please chip in with comments to reinforce the point! It'd be like trying to use a big graffiti scale marker to draw something tiny and intricate, right? So you can imagine how I felt using those Remrandts. For some time I kept them exactly as they were. What helped change my mind was buying a set of Sennelier half sticks to go along with them. These already came out the r...There's t...
robs-art-lessons.blogspot.com
Rob's Art Lessons: November 2014
http://robs-art-lessons.blogspot.com/2014_11_01_archive.html
Wednesday, November 12, 2014. Why not just take a picture? Journal page from last August in colored pencils. I ran into a comment in a letter to the editor in The Artist's Magazine. That demands an answer. The writer asked "With realistic portraits (snip parenthetical), I wonder, why they didn't just take a damn picture? Now take a photo of it. First with your cheap phone camera. Then with the very best camera you can borrow. If you are a good photographer with good equipment, lighting and st...But even ...
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Rob's Art Lessons: February 2015
http://robs-art-lessons.blogspot.com/2015_02_01_archive.html
Sunday, February 1, 2015. Confidence, Art and Life. I have a weird attitude. I may be giving bad advice sometimes by coming from a completely different perspective. Or I may be giving good advice where it's needed most. I could be doing both in the same paragraph, depending on who's reading it. So take this as an essay both in general about art and specifically on pastels, because pastel has become my heart-medium. It's in my Comfort Zone that I'm able to do anything at all. Add extra challenges onto...
robs-art-lessons.blogspot.com
Rob's Art Lessons: Breaking Pastel Sticks
http://robs-art-lessons.blogspot.com/2015/01/breaking-pastel-sticks.html
Tuesday, January 27, 2015. 9" x 12" pastel on paper. This post is mostly for new pastelists, though old timers and experts please chip in with comments to reinforce the point! It'd be like trying to use a big graffiti scale marker to draw something tiny and intricate, right? So you can imagine how I felt using those Remrandts. For some time I kept them exactly as they were. What helped change my mind was buying a set of Sennelier half sticks to go along with them. These already came out the r...There's t...
robs-art-lessons.blogspot.com
Rob's Art Lessons: October 2011
http://robs-art-lessons.blogspot.com/2011_10_01_archive.html
Monday, October 31, 2011. The above image is a painting by Monet titled "Hauling the Boat Ashore at Honfleur." Its image is being used for educational purposes here and on the site where I found it. Always be careful about copying images online, make sure you check whether it's public domain or has a Wikipedia Commons or other permission with attribution. Urban landscapes are full of people and parked cars. You can't get away from people and big manufactured objects if you sketch outdoors in the city...
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Rob's Art Lessons: 10 Tips for Daily Sketching
http://robs-art-lessons.blogspot.com/2014/10/10-tips-for-daily-sketching.html
Friday, October 24, 2014. 10 Tips for Daily Sketching. Pen and watercolor page of art supplies and ivy leaves. From my current Stillman and Birn Zeta art journal. I've done daily sketching or art for years, been interrupted by events like moving or health crises and then picked it up again many times. So I have some tips on creating and keeping the habit. These are ten things I learned that worked for me:. 1 Post your progress online somewhere that others can see it. 2 Paint the subjects you love. I star...