Category Archives: jenny keal pastel.

Jenny Keal – New Edition of my Pastel book

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I am delighted to announce that my book “Painting with Pastels” which had been out of print for a few months has now been re-issued in a new edition entitled “Start to Paint with Pastels“.

Painting with Pastels received some great reviews on Amazon and Artbookreview.net. but one of the few criticisms – that some of the step by step images were too small to see in detail – has been addressed in this new edition by adding 16 more pages and enlarging many of the stages.  Students will really benefit from the colour chart which now shows the precise colour references.

Start to Paint with Pastels brings you a wide range of landscapes with a strong emphasis on creating interesting moods and lighting effects. It is more than just a guide to producing a copy of what is in front of you, or a photograph. Injecting strong colours really makes your paintings sing and you will learn a lot more methods to improve your paintings from these pages. You will also find many useful tips on painting flowers.

If you are starting with pastel or feel you need to refresh your skills you will find this new book will inspire you try a range of exciting techniques for painting landscapes and flowers in pastel.

Quotes from reviews of the new edition:

‘With pastel books being thin on the ground, any new edition is welcome and this is a rather excellent look at what the medium can do as well as a well-thought out manual on how to do it.'” Review of the previous edition by Artbookreview.net

Publishers review:- “The new edition of Jenny Keal’s popular book Painting with Pastels is an inspiring and creative introduction to painting in this medium. Focusing on soft (chalk) pastels, this clear, simple-to-understand book encourages you to explore the materials and methods needed to get started with pastels. Jenny begins by introducing you to a variety of techniques, and looks at sketchbooks and photographs as a way of gathering source material. There are then five stunning step-by-step projects for the reader to choose from, covering a range of subjects from flowers to landscapes and coastal scenes, and designed to build on the basic skills covered in the earlier sections of the book. Here you will learn about creating atmosphere, colour, tone, composition and perspective, and before you realise it you will have all the skills you need to create your own beautiful pastel paintings.”

Jenny Keal – Atmosphere and Recession

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Learning how to create atmosphere and recession in a landscape painting is an essential skill for a landscape artist. Artists will have their own techniques to achieve this effect but in my new DVD Pastel Demonstration Lingcove Bridge, I explain my methods. I like to give a painting a sense of space and a strong feeling of atmosphere.

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My favourite techniques for creating recession are through the use of colour, tone and detail. Cooler, paler colours in the distance: warmer, darker colours as you progress towards the foreground. Less detail in the background and more in the foreground, especially around the focal point.  The relative sizes of objects in the landscape is also a consideration. Trees in the distance, even if they are larger than foreground trees, need to be depicted as smaller. As Father Ted says, “this cow is small but those are far away”

Atmosphere is something that becomes easier to understand if you sketch outdoors, in front of your subject. There is nothing like getting out in the countryside to give authenticity to your landscape paintings.

These are not new ideas, the old masters excelled at giving a sense of depth through these methods. You almost certainly have heard these tips before, but it can’t be said too often.

The new DVD is 1 hour 23 minutes long and is filmed in close detail so you can see every mark I make, with a running commentary about my thought process. There is an excerpt on You Tube

Morocco art competition – Final stage

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My entry for the Cox & Kings competition is finished.The final stage of any painting is a dangerous time. The temptation to put in every detail is great but it must be resisted. In the photograph which I posted on 28th October, (you can see this if you scroll back through my blog) there were a lot of trees and bushes so these have to be simplified. Also the hillsides were dotted with scrubby bushes but to include all of those would be spotty and distracting.

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There was no obvious pathway leading the eye into the painting so I created one that led towards my focal point, the building. I had moved the building closer to the wadi so that it fell in a more pleasing location, directly below the main peak of the mountain and within the Golden Section. The strongest tonal contrast is on the building and I have added a figure, a Berber woman in bright clothing which I had found in my 1993 Morocco sketchbook.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this exercise and I want to thank Katie Parsons of Cox and Kings for inviting me to take part. It was the incentive I needed to get painting again after a long absence.  I wish my fellow competitors good luck.

Stage 4 of my competition entry

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I have made further progress on my painting for the Cox & Kings Morocco competition: The middle distance in a landscape painting is often a tricky area to tackle. It’s important to keep in mind the relative size of features compared to the foreground such as trees and bushes;   the colour temperature must be carefully controlled;  and we must resist the temptation to render too much detail to features that are distant.

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Stage 4 – middle distance

In the photograph there were very strong, sharply defined cloud shadows on the hills on the right and initially I painted these in as they were in the photograph but I quickly realised that they were drawing the eye too much and would compete with my focal point so I softened them considerably. The hills on the left were lighter in tone with less tonal contrast so there was no need to soften them too much.

The next stage will be the focal point, the building, and the foreground. See you in a few days.

 

Stage 2 & 3 of my competition entry

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Yesterday I made more progress on my painting for the Cox & Kings Morocco competition: Stage 2 – Sky: When painting landscapes, I generally work from the top of a painting downwards. This serves two purposes. Firstly it helps prevent the heel of your hand smudging the work where it rests on the support and secondly it helps create a sense of recession. If you think of the landscape in terms of distance, the objects farthest away are usually lighter in tone, cooler in colour and less distinct. Translating this into the painting process means that you use paler, cooler colours in the distance and less detail. By working down the support you can remember that meme in your choice of colour and tone.

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Stage 2 – Sky

Stage 3 – The mountains: The sky was painted down over the drawn lines that defined the mountain tops. This is to ensure that there are no gaps between the sky and mountains and also to give the impression that the sky is, in effect, behind the mountains. Sticking to cooler colours and pale tones, the mountains are painted with sharp edges in places and softer edges in others so that there is not a hard line all the way across the painting. Soft edged cloud shadows helps define the ridges.

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Stage 3 – the mountains

The next step will be coming soon.