How to use pastels to paint trees in the landscape

Equipment

How to depict summer and winter trees

'I have worked in watercolour for over 20 years but, once tried, I became totally hooked on pastels,' says Steve Hall.

'Here I share the materials and techniques I use for depicting trees in the landscape'.

Summer in the South Downs, Unison Colour pastels on 400 grade UART black sanded paper, (25.5x40.5cm)

Summer and winter trees

After trying most brands of pastel and various supports, I have currently settled for Unison Colour soft pastels on UART sanded paper 400 grade, usually black and, as a result of this, I am now an Associate Artist for the Unison brand. The soft pastels and the sanded surface give me the maximum brilliance that the medium offers and the result is a truly stunning array of colour.

One of my most common marks is the diagonal stroke with the side of the pastel which, when done in clusters of varying lengths, describes the form of summer foliage perfectly.

By working from dark to light with various hues, leaf clusters, bows and whole trees can be built up. Summer in the South Downs (above) illustrates this type of mark making.

Winter trees present a new problem as it is now necessary to paint the fine filigree shapes of trunks and branches against the sky, as opposed to the massed shapes of summer.

In watercolour you would simply paint the sky and then, when dry, superimpose the skeletal tree shape over it. If you attempted to paint dark branches over a previously prepared sky in pastel, the result would simply not work as, like oil, pastel is worked from dark to light.

The answer to this problem is shown in the two vignettes below.

1. The shapes of the main branches are painted first, then the sky is worked around and up to these shapes as shown.

2. Finally the small branches and twigs can be drawn over the sky – this is not ideal but it is virtually impossible to paint the sky around every single twig.

Materials

All the pictures in this article were painted on UART black sanded paper 400 grade.

The pastels were exclusively Unison colour. I have a box containing about 200 hues – I selected colours at random as the feeling took me. However, for anyone attempting a subject such as this, the Unison Colour basic 16 half-stick landscape set would be sufficient to get started.

ORDER YOUR HALF-STICK SET HERE

Of course, the greater the range of hues, the greater the range of possibilities, but it is amazing what the creative artist can do with quite limited equipment if the mind is willing.

Bluebell Wood, Unison Colour pastels on 400 grade UART black sanded paper, (45.5x61cm)

Steve’s tips for painting with pastels

1. Follow the money

This is a bit of home-spun philosophy but what I am really saying is that, if you want to make progress and be successful in life, do what successful people who have gone before you have done.

Look at the work of artists that you admire and whose work you would like to emulate and study their methods and working practices. I am not suggesting you should try to paint exactly like other painters, that is wrong and you will never achieve it anyway, but aim to learn from them.

We all need heroes to look up to and, when I first started in watercolour, mine were people like Edward Wesson, John Yardley and Edward Seago. Although my style of painting is unique to me, you will detect the influence of these great painters in my work. The same is true for other painting media and the pastel works of Tony Allain and the American artist Tara Will are both well worth studying.

2. Practise, practise, practise

No-one wants to hear this, but if you want to paint good pictures, then you must paint, paint and then paint some more.

During a two-month period last year I painted 50 pastel pictures, of all sizes and subjects and on different surfaces, and my command of the medium was definitely better at the end than at the beginning. Just small pictures will do, but you must be persistent with your efforts.

3. Be discrete with your overpainting

Overpainting is often an essential element of pastel painting but beware! Dark colours and tones do not usually work well over light colours and tones.

4. Go with the flow

Try as much as possible to paint using the whole of your arm – from the shoulder, through the elbow and finally the wrist and fingers. This will inject energy into your work and will help to stamp your own style and authority on the painting.

I paint standing up and, on occasions, use most of my body joints, sometimes letting the whole torso move with the pastel stroke.

5. Limit your dominant colours

Although the pastel medium presents the painter with almost unlimited colour choices, picture designs work better if there are just a few dominant colours.

I find with pastel that colours adjacent or directly opposite on the colour wheel work particularly well together.

6. Restrict your blending

For certain pastel paintings, such as portraits, pastel blending offers some very realistic effects. However, with landscapes, too much blending will dull the vibrancy of the medium and also cause your work to look ‘pretty’ and unprofessional.

Landscapes are full of strong rugged components and your mark making needs to reflect this.

7. Don’t forget the tanks

Compare the finished painting with Stage Three (see demonstration below) and you will see the importance of light and shade.

Painting a picture without being aware of tonal values is like going to war without your tanks – you are missing the best weapon in your painting armoury.

Demonstration: Autumn Lane

Autumn Lane, Unison Colour pastel on 400 grade UART black sanded paper, (45.5x61cm)

I have chosen an autumn scene where there is both foliage and sections of trees that have already lost their leaves.

The scene is imagined, but is typical of numerous pictures that I have painted with this design – a track leading away to a point approximately one-third up from the bottom and one-third in from the side.

Using a piece of 18x24in 400 grade UART black sanded paper I roughly sketched in the design using a white pastel pencil.

I could also have drawn this with the side, or the sharpened end, of an ordinary pastel stick.

It is also important at this stage to make free flowing marks and not get bogged down with too much detail.

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This is where I make my first tentative steps with shape and colour, rather like the blocking-in stage of an oil painting.

There is no attempt at density, I simply work my way into the composition like an athlete warming up for the main event. However, even at this early stage, the dominant colours are already starting to merge – in this case brown/yellow and blue/green.

Now the fun begins.

I blocked in the sky, which immediately threw the tree shapes into relief and gave the scene a sense of depth.

The sky is graded from a pale yellow at the horizon to bluer tints as I move up the paper. This is one of the few instances where I allow some blending of the pastel medium and I gently pushed the pastel around the tree forms, knowing that I could sharpen them up at a later stage.

I worked around the major tree branches – the smaller twigs later would be added later.

The intensity of the foliage was increased with diagonal right to left marks (I am right handed) and the texture of the tree bark was initially addressed.

Some thought was also given to the distribution of lights and darks across the path and the adjacent bank and some of those areas were intensified

Finished painting

Autumn Lane, Unison Colour pastel on 400 grade UART black sanded paper, (45.5x61cm)

It was time to make the sunshine.

In the past, artists used a term called ‘putting on the half-crowns’. What they meant by this was that, by adding light tones, or even white, to the objects receiving sunlight, the picture would come to life, have more appeal to a prospective purchaser and therefore fetch a higher price.

The final stage really is an opportunity to lift your work and make the picture pop. I drenched the picture in sunlight by adding light tones all over the scene.

The light is coming from the right and is catching the tree trunks, the banks and the path. These lights also have a secondary function as dark tones, which were added earlier in the composition, have now been trapped by the lights and represent the areas in shadow.

I also added more detail, particularly in the branches, tree trunks foliage, and the obligatory fence.

For more information and details about his teaching programme see www.stevehallartist.co.uk

This project is taken from a four-part series by Steve in The Artist 2021. Enjoy endless inspiration with access to past and present issues of both The Leisure Painter and The Artist, plus exclusive video demos, tutorials and more, with our Studio Membership! Discover how you can join today.

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