A very small issue that can cause a big headache when painting or if any medium is deciding how big of a canvas or paper to use.

Well, here's a sample tip.

If you're ever faced with this dilemma, it doesn't matter.

You can use a big piece of paper or canvas, a small piece, a medium piece.

You decide, in fact, close your eyes and choose the size backdrop at random.

What matters when you are painting is how you arrange your artwork onto the paper.

I illustrated just what I'm talking about on today's show, so pay attention.

It's time to paint with pastels.

Hello, friends, and welcome back to our show, Painting with Pastels.

Welcome to our studio.

My name is France.

As you can see in our studio today, we have flowers, beautiful flowers.

And that is exactly what we are going to be painting today.

We have our pastel boxes here and we have our paper or canvas that is made here.

This is the Kingston Board that I'm using today.

It's very large, but we are not going to be using all of it for a painting.

Today we are going to select a section of it.

How do we do that?

Well, first, let's get the one that we want to start with.

I want a light color for the background and say, okay, I just want to use this area right here for my flowers.

There we go.

Let me see.

That seems about right.

So I'm just going to softly fill this in.

And again, at this point, it does not have to be a perfect circle for you or a perfect oval.

It can always go back and touch it up later.

I just want my background, basically.

So I'm doing this here now.

I can put this down a little and I'm getting a darker color for the base.

My base can go right here.

Perfect.

All right.

So, okay, now, with this too, I can just do a basic blending because I want something for the background before I lay my colors down for the edge.

Very careful with it.

There we go.

Now I can blend inside.

Remember to relax yourself, because this should be fun.

This should be enjoyable learning.

We are learning together and there should be no stress involved.

This should be a nice, peaceful journey.

Now, for the bottom part, blending in it and keeping it separate from the top.

As you can see.

Now, the flower that I have on the desk behind me.

It's just to show you for reference, but we are going to be drawing a larger face, just something that can occupy good parts of this for us.

Let's see.

Okay, Now that I have an idea what I want to do.

I'm going to be putting my face right in the center right here.

I think the bottom part should start right here, and then it's going to go up like this.

I think this should be fine for my face here.

What do you think?

I'm just blending.

Filling in the sections.

Yeah, that should be fine for my face right here.

Great.

Now, you remember what we talked about as far as when we doing the background?

Well, we use the dark colors.

We use black sometimes to show that there is something there.

There is something in the background.

So if I just painted my leaves in my roses that I have, then it would look like it's just that single thing there.

But if I want something that shows fullness, then I can certainly use black and let's say it's going to be all down here, even over my face here, I'm going to have my flowers all here.

Then I can do this.

Just like that for now and again, make sure that everything is even because if you do, then it's going to look too perfect and you don't want that.

Now, before I get my hands too busy with the colors, I'm going to start blending my face there.

One by one, we talked about it's like sculpting when you're painting of pastels.

So you are following the shape that you design in.

So you notice, I want that curve seal here.

It's got a shorter curvature.

So I'm doing that with my fingers.

The way that I'm blending it in, scatter so that it's rounded.

Great.

Now that I have the base, I can go back on it with the white again.

It's okay if some blue is showing, because again, that would be the reflection of the base on my face there.

And you want that to show.

I just want to eliminate some of the dark colors.

Again, when you're painting, if by accident, your fingers get tainted with the dark colors, you can always wash that.

But if you do wash your fingers, make sure you dry it thoroughly, because the pastel being like a chalk, your finger touching it with water, you'll get mud.

So that's definitely not something that you want on your pastel papers.

Now, again, I'm going back and I'm blending this and just like that, since that's okay.

Now, remember we added the dark colors staff, the black to show that there's fullness.

I'm leaving some of the spaces in between because that's where my leaves will go and my flowers will go over this so that it shows that there's something in the background again.

Don't worry.

It doesn't have to be exactly one way.

You can do whatever you want, even add some over the white face that you've painted.

Now I need to have an idea of what exactly I am going to be doing here.

Let's see if I have a yellow rose right here and another one right here.

And I'll put on one small one that's not even open yet.

Small, but right here.

And let's see.

Okay, Again, we're suggesting the shape.

This is the beautiful thing about pastel.

You're just suggesting at this point, you're not painting it yet.

Think this sort of three will do fine.

Now, this one right here, I'll put one right here and one right here.

We can go back and make them turn them into roses afterwards.

But at this point we are positioning.

And positioning is very important.

Now, are we going to need some leaves here?

I'm suggesting at this point, not quite making the leaves out yet because that is my darker green and that's going to go over my background.

Remember to be free.

No worries, because you are in control of this.

You can take it wherever you want to take it.

Okay, Now I am going to start giving some shapes on my roses and just going to highlight on my light source is coming from here by adding the White and everything's going to take shape.

Little by little, I have another shade of yellow to show the fold just like this.

And then, of course, I need a deeper red just like that.

Putting the deeper red.

The opposite section of where I put the white.

And now we can use the tip of a black to do the final outline.

Okay, Now we started outlining our leaves, but they haven't taken shape yet.

So we can do that.

We have a finger and highlighting some of them not leaves.

When you painting leaves, it's very important that they retain their individuality from a distance.

You can suggest by just touching up.

But once you have something like this that is up close, you basically have to show everything.

So if this is a baby's breath right here, for example, you have to do the details.

And the way I'm doing that, I am using the tip of the pastel and I'm pushing it against the board.

There we go.

And a little leaf right here.

Now, again, our leaves and not complete yet because we just giving them the shapes, but we are going to use darker tone to make it to turn it the way that we want it to look.

Because at this point, there's really no room for suggestion because you are right in the front of this painting.

There you go.

A little yellow again.

I'm using the corner and I'm making dots here.

Okay.

Now we almost have I want some shadows of these reflecting on the face and some of my darker greens still, because our leaves have to be accentuated.

And at the bottom of a rose, each rose have to be given individual attention.

They are all divas.

They must be catered to.

We are almost there.

Now I'm using the blacks to touch up my leaves.

Some of them not all because if you do the same thing for every one of them, then you're going to have a monotonous painting.

You want different things, things that stands out, things that are out of the ordinary.

Then you have something of value, something that is beautiful, like a flower face.

I am using my lighter green again to accentuate on this side the structure of the leaf sheet.

I'd like some.

Bradley is coming down this way like that.

They go going to touch that up with a darker green and just like that.

And I'm gonna blend it in.

Don't be afraid.

These are your colors.

You are in control and you can do whatever you want with them.

I haven't used this color yet.

You have this orange here?

Oh, yes, I'm going to use it because I'm not afraid.

And it should be clear with the colors.

See where they'll take you.

There we go.

Of course, if this is a white race, it's going to reflect what's on top of it.

We have the shadows now.

This is here.

My light is coming from here.

Then I'll have my shadows on this.

And the funny thing is, you can just take it like that to your frame shop and have them frame it for you in a circle like this because it's held on me.

That's the side.

That's the way I cut the paper.

Or you don't even have to cut it.

You could tell the frame person that I want it to be frame just like that, because that's the way that I want it to look on my wall.

And they'll do that for you.

They'll cut this area here and have it matted for you.

That way you'll have it now, a little shadow on this side.

I don't want it to be too, too dark.

So I'm just using the gray.

So I'll just blend this in like this.

Remember, nothing flat because the vase has this round curved to it.

So I'm curving it with my fingers as I am blending it just like that.

Just a hint of color on it.

Colors are beautiful.

Don't be afraid to use them.

There we go.

Now all that remains is for us to sign our name on it.

And I'll do that just right here.

Derek.

Girlfriend, this is a beautiful flower vase, and I'll be sending it to you.

Thank you for watching.

Hope to see you next time where we take on a bigger challenge.

Hope you can keep up with us next.

Thanks, friends.

Funding for this program is provided in part by the Virgin Islands Council on the Arts.