Life Drawing from Home: Conté Crayon & Pastel (Patreon)

Introduction

Last week’s post explored the use of Conté crayon and this week we will use Conté crayon again in combination with soft pastels. Adding colour to your drawings can really liven them up and give them an extra dimension by bringing energy and atmosphere. The use of colour in these exercises has more to do with drawing rather than painting, you don’t need any experience or prior knowledge with colour, you will discover what colours work for you through trial and error. If you are used to using colour, this could be an opportunity for you to experiment with different colour combinations that you may not have tried before. 

Aims and objectives

• To employ the lessons learnt from the previous post on Conté crayon in combination with soft coloured pastels
• To encourage you to focus on the whole rather than the detail, creating a variety of marks and colour to bring your drawing to life.
• To familiarise you with soft pastels and encourage you to use any colours you choose to see what effects they produce

Materials

You will need:

• Conté Crayon, alternatively you can use compressed charcoal, charcoal pencil or any hard crayon (black or dark shade).
• A variety of soft pastels, at least 5
• Approximately 10 sheets of coloured paper, A3. Pastel paper if you have it or sugar paper is fine – a good alternative to this is scrapbooks, children’s ones will do, they are very affordable and usually made from sugar paper. Otherwise brown paper and/or any coloured paper you have
• I also find it helpful to have some wipes or a damp cloth to hand, your hands can get a bit messy

Reference photos

Start by selecting a range of images. Either work from one of the online classes that you may have started to work from or use the reference material from our Patreon. Download the images, open them up as a slide show so you can quickly toggle between poses and time yourself for each drawing before moving on to the next pose. 1 – 3 minutes to start with. 

Exercise 1

Step 1. You will be doing 5 quick drawings to begin with. Choose a sheet of paper from your pile, any one will do and choose any coloured pastel. If you are not sure which to choose from, choose a pastel that will stand out from the coloured paper you have chosen, such as a light colour on a dark background or vice versa. 

Step 2. Once you have selected your images, set your timer and begin with your coloured pastel. Just roughly shape out the whole figure on the paper. Accuracy is not so important at this stage, it’s really about getting a feel of where things are in relation to each other and how the figure will fit on the paper.

Step 3. Now take your Conté crayon and work over the top with some contour lines. Don’t worry about matching the shape with the line, it really doesn’t matter if they are out of sync. 

Repeat this so you have a least 5 drawings.

Exercise 2

You are going to do the same exercise again, but this time with two different coloured pastels. Look at your pastels and choose a light coloured one and a dark coloured one. The tone here is more important than the colour itself. If you are not sure whether the colours you have chosen work together or not, just try them out and see what happens. You will find out what colours work with what as you go along. You will be doing 3 x 5 minute drawings so choose three images to work from. 

Step 1. Start with your darker pastel and look for the darker areas. Roughly lay down these areas with your pastel, similar to exercise 1. Be general, there is no need for specific details, you are just making suggestions to where the dark areas are. 

Step 2. Now do the same with your lighter pastel, roughly laying down the lighter areas.

Step 3. When you have done that, place your contour lines over the top. 

Try to remember to vary your contour lines by changing the pressure of your Conté crayon/charcoal pencil as you go, if you are feeling a bit tentative, draw the lines in lightly and go over some of them when the drawing is complete to make them a bit darker. 

Summary

You can change your colours and introduce more if you wish, it’s up to you. Remember that your paper is also a colour, so for me personally, two pastels are usually enough. You may be tempted to blend your pastels with your fingers, by all means try it but be careful not to overdo it. I find that it can flatten the drawing as it erases those freshly made marks. Try smudging the pastel instead with the side of your hand rather than blending. Any contour lines you are not happy with try going over them with some more pastel rather than rubbing them out as this can have a similar effect to blending. Ultimately, you are looking for a variety of marks and a variety of line to keep your drawing fresh and loose.

Moving Forward

If you enjoyed this exercise, you may want to look at getting some pastel paper. It comes in a wide variety of colours and textures specifically made for pastel. Some are soft and pale and others really rich in colour where you can try working from dark to light. Daler Rowney offer a variety of pads with assorted colours which is a good place to start and if you want to work larger, you can buy individual sheets. Look up some other artists using pastel such as Caroline Deane and Jylian Gustlin who use pastel in a more contemporary way. It will give you some ideas for colour combinations and ways to make marks with pastel.

-

This is the fifth of our weekly 'Life Drawing From Home' blog posts, commissioned using money raised on the Draw Patreon. Please do share your drawings with us, as we would love to see what everyone is up! Just tag us with @Draw_Brighton on social media or use the #LifeDrawingFromHome and #DrawBrighton hashtags. this article was written by Shelley Morrow - you can follow her on Instagram at @shelleymorrow1 and you can see more of her work on her website www.shelleymorrow.com.

Thanks for your support!