Painting a Still Life in Dry Pastel, Step by Step
Subject, lighting and composition
A dry pastel study — Conté square, white chalk and black stone
An appetizing piece of bread, rich in warm color contrasts. No particular composition for this study, whose goal is working on colors with dry pastel.
Natural light from a slightly overcast sky is complemented by an electric light to warm up the whole scene.
Choosing a palette
This is the first necessary step, the product of observing colors and hands-on experience with pastel blends.
The idea is to plan the mixes through which you will reach the desired color on paper. It requires thinking in color... regular rather than intensive training, mostly observation, a bit of practice and it becomes second nature.
You have to account for the transparency of some colors or their covering power, and avoid trial and error that piles up layers until the paper is saturated with material (then nothing can be done anymore for lack of grip!)...
Can you skip this step? Try without — watch out for dead ends!
The chosen palette
- Sepia and white base to tint the background
- Yellow ochre + white for the crumb and lit warm whites
- Variations of yellow ochre + sepia + sanguine for the crust
- Ultramarine, sepia, bordeaux to strengthen/color the shadows
- Tiny strokes of black stone for the charred part of the bread
- Highlights of light flesh yellow just for fun
Step 1: drawing then scrubbing the background
The drawing is quickly done. The loaf was shortened for a better composition. Sepia pencil was chosen for the relative neutrality of this all-purpose brown, which blends well with every color.
Then hatch the whole thing with white chalk to soak the background in white, which gives good grip for working in opaque layers.
We are not in Photoshop! Remember you are working with material! Underpaintings and transparencies have to be prepared, etc.
Step 2: building up, rising contrast
We work toward growing contrast: lighten the lights, darken the darks, bring the colors up gradually.
Working the contrast: values and shadows
Hatch densely with sepia and ultramarine to darken and tint the tone of the shadows.
After soaking the crust background with yellow ochre, work its relief by hatching along the form with sanguine, darkening here and there with sepia.
Get the light yellow of the plate by alternating scrubbing of yellow ochre and white, then boost the highlight by crushing a piece of white square pastel onto it.
Step 3: bringing up the colors
Alternate covering color mixes (yellow ochre, white and sanguine) with lively hatching to bring up colors that blend within the thickness of successive layers.
Work toward progressive saturation by removing traces of white from previous layers, getting closer to pure colors.
Remember to dose the amount of material as part of a progressive contrast approach. Slabbing down a thick band of pure color at once means no later retouching, because of burnishing on powder-saturated paper.
Keep hatching with your eye fixed on values first, then on tones. Correct tones by cooling with ultramarine here, bordeaux there; shadow coldly with sepia, warm up with ochre.
Finally, the ultimate step for saturating contrast: mark the saturated highlights and lights (white of the crumb, bright light on the crust, reflection on the plate edge). Lay three strokes of black stone on the charred part of the crust.
Done!
