George on the Allotment, oil pastel on canvas sheet, (16.5x23cm)

Develop your skills with oil pastels and learn to create texture and interest in your painting as you use oil pastel and stencilling techniques to paint a summer allotment scene.

Your reference photo

Materials

• Sennelier oil pastels
  • French ultramarine blue, intense red, pine green, lemon yellow, royal blue, burnt umber, white, flesh ochre, deep yellow, phthalo blue, cobalt violet, parma violet, barite green
• Neo pastel in light brown
• Acrylic-primed canvas
• Tracing paper, colour shaper, paper, scalpel

Stage 1

Using the photograph of my local allotments (above) for reference, create a working sketch for your painting.

Then transfer the scene to a piece of acrylic-primed medium white canvas and sketch the basic design loosely with a dark Neocolor I pastel.

Make a paper or tracing paper copy of your line drawing to use as a mask later.

Stage 2

With the drawing in place, rub French ultramarine blue, intense red, pine green, lemon yellow and royal blue into the surface.

Stage 3

Taking your paper copy, carefully cut along the horizon, including the profile of the shed and George.

Lay the bottom half onto the painting and block in French ultramarine blue and burnt umber into the upper background.

As the paper is peeled away, the sharp profile of the shed and George is revealed.

Enhance the background further using white, flesh ochre and yellow deep to make the light come from the right-hand side.

Stage 4

Using the scalpel, cut the paper copy of the shed into large sections; this will allow you to work over different parts of the shed but maintain the sharp edges. Cut out the side of the shed that faces the sun.

Cut notches at the approximate spacing of the boards, then drag light brown Neopastel over the surface. The mask prevents the pastel from going where you don’t want it to. Tackle the roof in a similar way.

For the rest of the painting, block in lots of loose and bright colour. As well as applying the Sennelier colours already mentioned, add phthalo blue, parma violet, cobalt violet and barite green.

When applied, mash them together with the colour shaper.

If you're new to pastels, don't stop here! Explore our other beginner-friendly guides to learn all you need to progress and develop your pastel skills.

Stage 5

Now for the fun part! Scrape out the pea sticks and trellis with a palette knife, revealing the colours underneath in a sgraffito effect.

Finish the shed using the mask again (as above) and give George some highlights and a basket. His skin tones are achieved using flesh ochre.

Dash in the sweet peas and bean flowers randomly using parma violet, cobalt violet, white and intense red.

Create the spiky flowers using yellow deep.

Finally, put a little more definition into the red pump in the foreground.

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Read Marjorie Firth's review of Sennelier oil pastels for more inspiration.