Making it Pop with Pastels!

Hello, everyone! Whenever I find out about a new painting technique, I cannot wait to try it and show you guys how it works! This week, I explored the use of soft pastels with watercolor to achieve greater depth of field. I absolutely love mixed media, which is why I can't believe I hadn't heard of this sooner!

To start, I sketched out this morpho butterfly perched on some orchids, referenced from this photo, onto a piece of 300lb Bright White Kilimanjaro Watercolor Paper.

Next, I blocked off areas of the painting I wanted to keep white with the Cheap Joe's Masking Fluid.

Then I went right in like I would any other watercolor painting and filled in part of the wings with a combination of American Journey Cobalt Blue, Ultramarine Blue, and Shadow...

And my orchids with Permanent Magenta.

Next, I used Sap Green all over the background, filled in some orchid details with more Permanent Magenta, Permanent Rose Quinacridone, and Yellow Ochre, and finished my butterfly with Lamp Black and Alizarin Crimson.

Once everything was completely dry, I grabbed 4 Faber-Castell PITT Pastel Pencils in colors that matched my painting.

I used white to outline my petals because they have a glow around them in the reference picture, but lining them also helped to soften the edge between the contrasting pink and green.

Next, I went in with this burgundy that perfectly matched my pink, and I was able to add some more shadows to the darker parts of my orchids.

And using a tortillion, I blended the burgundy into the pink.

Then I took my dark green pencil and got into some of the nooks and crannies around my subjects and blended it out into my sap green background.

The final touch was adding the blue to those white sections on the wings and also using it to soften the black veins, and there you have it!

It can be kind of tough to control watercolors, so I love any kind of help I can get when it comes to creating the piece I want. Have you guys used pastels with watercolors? I wonder what happens when you add water to them...I'll have to save that for another post on another day!

What is your favorite medium to use with watercolors!