I am delighted to welcome Emma Colbert as a guest blogger. Last year, I featured her work twice, in February (and you can see the progression of that piece below!) and in October.
Emma is known for her pet portraits particularly of dogs. As many members of the HowToPastel Facebook group have asked the best way to paint fur, I immediately thought of Emma Colbert and approached her to write something on the topic for you.
Don’t know her work? Here’s a teaser:
Before handing the blog over to Emma, first a wee bit about her.
Emma Colbert Bio
Emma Colbert was born in Northern Ireland and is currently travelling in Europe, painting in pastel while on the move. (Check the bottom of this post for photos of the motorhome!) She specialises in animal portraits but enjoys painting a wide variety of subject matter. Emma was recently featured on the cover of Artists & Illustrators Magazine. She was also awarded the ‘Reader’s Choice’ award from Artists & Illustrators Artist of the Year exhibition 2016. Check her website for more information.
And now, here’s Emma Colbert!
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Thank you so much to Gail for the honour of writing a guest blog. Gail has asked me to share my tips and techniques for painting fur in soft pastel.
I have always enjoyed painting living subjects, both animals and people. My older sister who was studying art in school introduced me to her cheap student grade pastels and I have loved the medium ever since.
I have worked hard to improve my landscapes, interiors and still life so I can produce more interesting paintings and challenge myself more. But I must admit that when I finish a background and start work on my main subject, I can slip into a sea of curls or brindle quite happily! I find the whole method of building up the illusion of fur meditative!
Born in Northern Ireland, for the past two years I’ve been travelling around Europe in a motorhome with my partner, and dog. I took my business on the road and as it turns out, pastel is the perfect medium to travel with! I managed to work in a studio set up in the rear lounge of the motorhome.
I use a mixture of soft pastel, mainly Unison Colour, with some Terry Ludwigs and Faber Castell too. I also use Faber Castell pastel pencils for the finest details. Depending on the type of fur, I like to keep that to a minimum as I prefer the looser more vibrant quality of the soft pastel. But with certain coats, like on that of a smooth-coated dog, the pencils are very useful for moving the soft pastel around and creating those fine wispy ends.
The more animals I paint the more I realise it’s not necessary to paint every single hair to create the illusion. Although I love realism, it’s actually the Impressionists who inspire me most in how they used loose, sometimes abstract marks, to represent something and let the viewer’s eye do the rest. I believe it leads to an even more realistic result as the subject is less static. I have seen few paintings more alive than those of the Impressionists from across a gallery room. I’m still working on my Impressionistic abilities but their use of colour definitely has inspired me, as it was when I was looking at a Seurat up close that colour theory really clicked. His obvious use of opposite and complementary colours literally spelled it out to me.
I work on velour pastel paper as I love the soft quality of the finished piece. There are a few tricks to working on this paper in particular. But to create realistic fur, it’s necessary to have a pastel paper that allows many layers, and most importantly, the ability to add light on top of dark. Velour allows many layers and creates an incredibly soft appearance, but it also has a few quirks to deal with. Like all papers, it has its pros and cons. The best thing to do is to experiment. In my experience, the smoother toothed papers make it easier to create detail in animals.
Step by Step of Dog “Yaya”
Don’t be too fussy with your first layer. Starting with the darkest values, mark these in following the general flow of the fur. When black is my darkest value I use a black Faber Castell stick. It’s great for the first layer as it doesn’t fill the paper and it’s a lovely jet black.
Working down the face, building up the layers of brindle takes time. After the black layer, I bring in the warm red earths and oranges working up to highlight tones of peaches and yellow. Once I have a few layers down I can use the pastel pencils to tweak the ends of the hairs and refine. On their own, the pastel pencils are quite weak in pigment on velour. But by putting down the soft pastel first and then using a similarly toned pencil you can flick the ends of hairs out from your larger pastel marks.
I use every size of pastel from the full stick right down to tiny shards. The full sticks provide me with thick marks that cover the paper quickly and allow me to start blending. On velour, I rub all the marks on each layer well into the paper. If you don’t, the pastel will sit on top of the paper and you will find it difficult to create the detail as the tooth will fill too quickly. The key is to use thin layers and many of them. Imagine how thick an animal’s coat is, I may cover an area 10 times in different marks before I feel it looks dense enough.
A few of my best tips for creating fur
Pastel sticks are a thing of beauty when you buy them, but don’t be afraid to rip papers off and break them when you need sharp edges. My pastels wear down as I use all sides of them for different jobs. I also occasionally drop one which often turns into a happy accident with the revealing of new shards. Some of my favourite pieces of pastel are smaller than fingernails yet I’ve been using them for ages. Often the smaller pieces are only for the highlights, so they last a long time. When you look at my palette I have the most amount of smaller pieces for those commonly used highlight colours.
I think the fear is that once you break a pastel, it will fall away to nothing. It depends on the softness of the pastel of course, but I have not found this to be true of Unison. Breaking one pastel simply gives me several useful pastels in that colour.
I like to work my backgrounds first. As a general rule, I work from background to foreground, even on the animal’s face. For example, I’ll work the area behind a muzzle or chin, before adding the chin that’s sitting out in front. This way, you can achieve those fine hairs around the edges of the animal.
When painting white fur, notice where the light is hitting the subject directly. The very brightest highlights should be the only area you use pure white. Ideally, you need a range of light tones, both warm and cool to create white fur. Some examples I use from the Unison range are Grey 27, A19, A31 and Blue Violet7. These are all in the Animal set I created for Unison and they are so useful for those ‘off white’ tones in both warm and cool shadows. [Check below to see the colours Emma is referring to.]
I also use some darker colours like Grey8 and A27 in the darkest of shadows. You would be surprised how dark you need to go sometimes in those first layers to create enough depth. If you go too light too soon, you’ll lose all the definition in the hair.
There are some breeds of dog where the fur is slightly frizzy in places. Chow Chows especially require more of the individual hairs to be created and I use a slight shake in my hand when making those marks to create the wave. It’s tiring on a bigger piece, so I work smaller areas up, blocking in the darks and adding areas of detail. I work from the top left downwards as it always leaves me somewhere to rest my hand.
When creating a large area of curls it can seem very daunting and difficult to keep your place. I look for the larger areas, the darkest and most prominent curls. Get a few anchors in place and then work at filling the gaps with a darker value from the coat. Once you get a couple of rough layers in, you can start to worry about refining individual curls with highlight colours. Try to see the bigger picture and not get lost in the detail too soon.
Although I paint a lot of domestic animals, I also love to paint wildlife. I’ve spent a lot of time around nature parks and reserves and love to collect photo reference to work from. However, I’m not the best photographer and I rely on being able to piece together my photos to create the scene I imagine. This is where good use of colour theory can help in your painting. Look for colour substitutions in your palette to replace greys and browns. Try to use combinations of more vibrant colours to show how light dances off a subject. Bringing in colours from your background will help create harmony throughout the painting.
For my wildlife paintings, I also find I use more random mark making in their coats. Wild animals don’t always have the same groomed appearance as our domestic friends, so remember to not make your marks too uniform. This is a good trick for most types of fur though. A certain looseness to the marks will take away that static appearance.
One last tip is to spend time working on your edges. How an animal sits in front of its background will help the overall realism of the fur. Notice where the finest hairs are around the edges and use pastel pencil to lightly drag some pigment out. It also helps to have contrasting colours in the background.
You’ll notice in my stag painting that each edge of the deer is contrasted by its neighbouring background area. This is planned to make the animal pop out from the bokeh background. It was also an attempt to not use any green. Coming from Ireland I find that difficult! But I wanted to experiment with the blue/orange and yellow/purple opposites in this by exaggerating the colours.
I hope you find some of these tips helpful. The main key to painting fur is patience. Once you crack that layering technique I bet you’ll find it relaxing too!
[And for Gail, some cats!]
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Fantastic info on painting fur in soft pastels don’t you think? Thanks so much Emma!!
Emma and I would love to hear from you. Was this helpful? Do you want to paint animals or already do so? Do you have any questions for Emma? Please leave us a comment 🙂
By the way, just below are two of her Unison Colour pastel sets. Click the link under each image and you’ll be taken to the Unison Colour website where you can purchase them. Or check your local retailer – they may have them or be able to order them.
Until next time!
~ Gail
And here is the paper Emma uses:
Photos inside and out of the motorhome in which Emma, her partner Andrew, and their miniature dachshund Brocci, are currently travelling. I guess it’s rather difficult to complain about lack of space in my studio when I see this!
78 thoughts on “Emma Colbert On Painting Fur In Soft Pastels”
I love Emma’s work. Thank you for featuring her.
Ruth you are so welcome. I was delighted to have Emma as a guest!
Love your blogs Gail! Emma’s work is stunning and inspiring. She gets that sketch down exact…wondering does she use a grid or what to get it so precise?
Thanks Donna!! And agreed about Emma’s work. Let’s ask her about the sketch shall we?
I have been following Emma on YouTube for a while now. How beautiful her work is. Thank you Gail for asking Emma to write for the Blog and also thanks to Emma for all the hints and tips she gives.
Penny I’m so happy that Emma’s blog post resonated with you!
Amazing work. I have SO MUCH to learn. Wow!
Wow indeed! Hope that Emma’s tips help you on your learning journey John 🙂
Well, I have a lot of questions, but foremost in my mind at this time, is how Emma keeps her working area so clean? I realize she may have cleaned it up for the photo but there’s no indication of pastel worked into the upholstery. I’m definitely a messier worker. I’d love some ideas on keeping my work area from looking like a pastel explosion. :-}
Exquisite work!
Hi Debbie, GREAT question! I can’t get over Emma working on these pieces with pastels in such a small confined area either. How does she do it??
Thank you Debbie! I think the photo makes it look a lot cleaner than it is haha! I have three windows and a roof vent so plenty of ventillation is important. But to be honest the only time I create any ‘cloud’ of pastel is when working a large area of background. I don’t lean heavily, and apply thin layers so there is seldom a huge amount of dust to deal with. In regards to the tight space. It never feels small in there because of the views outside. I never feel closed away like in a studio. It’s small, yes there are compromises and I’m forcibly more organised in there. But when I’m sitting comfortably with everything around me, it’s great! And the kitchen is within reach for tea breaks 🙂
This makes me want to paint animals! Emma’s information is so valuable for any subject and I went down the rabbit hole of Seurat too! Thank you for another great read. No one need complain about not having enough space when you see what beautiful work Emma is creating on the move!
Exactly Helen! My space is the size of a palace compared to Emma’s!
Glad it inspired to take a trip down a rabbit hole 😀
Emma, I love your work. I’ve watched all of your videos on YouTube and enjoyed every single one of them. You are amazing and to think you turn out all this beautiful work in such a tiny space…..your motorhome! I’m in awe!!!!! Thank you so much for the tutorial on the beautiful German Shepherd. What a gorgeous painting. You’ve taught me many “tricks of the trade” and for that, I am very, very grateful.
All the best to you in your travels and your art.
Warmest regards,
Deedy Gregg
Deedy, thanks for your warm appreciative words for Emma! I too am in awe!
Thank you so much Deedy! Two years in the motorhome so I am well used to it, although we ended up renting somwhere this winter due to terrible weather. I’m so glad you find my tips helpful!
very helpful. Thank you.
That’s grand Mary!
Oooooooohhhhhhh, boy, have I needed to read this!! Thanks Emma and Gail!!!!
Hah hah Elaine. I thought you might enjoy Emma’s post!!
Wow, Emma’s animal painting are fabulous and this blog is so timely as I am about to have a go at painting my dog Missee.
Love your blogs Gail.
Cheers from Australia.
Laurel
Yay – gotta love perfect timing! Good luck with your painting Laurel.
Glad you’re enjoying the blogs 🙂
Emma’s work is wonderful and inspiring. This was an especially good tutorial. I have also joined her Patreon channel for lots of tips and more tutorials. It is very inexpensive for all the information I have gotten from her. I highly recommend it if you enjoy painting animals of any kind.
Thanks Joan! And I’m sure Emma will appreciate the Patreon plug. I too have been thinking of going the Patreon route but not organized enough to do it yet!
Thank you Joan! That is very generous of you to say. So glad my tips are helpful!
I too am a patreon of Emma’s! Just Love her work and style. She paints quite slowly and enjoys every stroke. Well, at least it looks that way! 😉
She has awesome full-length real-time videos and I am learning a lot from her.
Thank you so much, Gail, for having Emma as a guest speaker !!
So glad you enjoyed Emma’s guest blog Cheryl!! I am sure she loves having you as a Patron 🙂
Fantastic, the detail is just enough making your portraits rich and believable. Inspirational.
Love your words about Emma’s portraits, Sue! Glad you have found them inspirational.
Thank you so much Sue, that’s wonderful to hear as I’ve been trying to do less detail believe it or not!
Dear Emma (and Gail), thank you for this wonderful blog – I have just started trying velour for my dog portraits and love the softness as you say, although I quickly experienced the “quirks” as well!! I wonder if you could help me with colour advice for golden retriever fur. I have two of my own and of course I try to paint them all the time, but I still haven’t found the right colour combinations for their soft honey, to sand, to white colour fur. Do you have a tried and true combination? And I will definitely purchase your Unison set!!! Thanks again, Kerrie
Kerrie, so happy you enjoyed Emma’s post. It seems like the timing works for you! I’ll leave Emma to answer your question. If you’re going to buy her box of pastels, then maybe she will offer suggestions of colours from it. Over to you Emma.
Hi Kerrie, Golden Retrievers can have really tricky colours to capture. The main colours most people lack in their palette are a range of tints. If you’re looking at the Unison set, that top row of colours with Grey 27, A7 RE15 and LT6 are useful warm tints. You may even see some BV7 on the lightest parts of the fur on the shadow side of the dog. Light fur also has a much darker base layer than most think. I often use dark shades like BE21 for lower layers. If you have a look on my Youtube my most recent timelapse video shows the build up of three dogs. The one on the left is honey/white and will be of help in showing the lower layers. Happy pastelling!
Fantastic info! Thanks Emma!
Thanks Emma, that is really helpful!!
Thank you Gail and thank you Emma for this brilliant blog. Animals are my favourite subjects and I’m so glad this has step by step photos of a work in progress. I was really interested in her backgrounds as I use much less detail, and in some instances just leave plain white or coloured paper when requested by a commission customer. I too love slivers of pastel, but not velour paper I prefer Pastelmat. I’m downloading this to keep to read again…and again, love it.
Mary-Anne thanks for your enthusiastic response! Glad the step-by-step was useful. It’s always fascinating to see a piece progress isn’t it?
I don’t paint animals as a rule, except for my cat Pepper of whom I was thinking about doing a series. Also, I don’t think I have the patience necessary to do fur in the way that Emma does. Her pet portraits are stupendous, and I am in awe of her talent. I very much enjoyed seeing her progressions. Thanks again, Gail, for always having a great blog!!
Thanks Ruth! And even though you may not paint animals especially with the detail that Emma does (and we all have our own styles, our own unique voices), as you have indicated, there’s always something to learn!! By the way, since I posted the blog, you’ll see the addition of a cat piece (since I am a cat lover!).
WOW
That’s all I need To say
WOW works for me Richard!
I thought your pastels of dogs and other animals were fantastic. I have tried to draw and use pastel on a picture of our English setter but it was a mess! I will try again.
Thank you again for these postings.
Pamela Manning
Thanks Pamela. It sounds like Emma’s post has inspired you to have another go at painting your English setter. Good for you!
Wow, Emma Colbert is amazing. Her work is stunning. I appreciate that she has taken the time to share some advice. I love doing pet portraits and I hope to improve my work. Some of her comments can apply to my other work as well. I seem to get caught up in the details too soon. I am going to try and work the overall image before getting caught up in the details. I am at the beginning of a new project (not an animal) but I think this advice is exactly what I needed to hear right now. Thank you so much.
I just love synchronous timing! Fabulous that Emma’s advice plays into your new project Glenda!
Thank you Glenda! So nice to hear the advice applies to other subjects and came at just the right time!
Lately I haven’t felt very inspired to use my pastels, until now. I am going to order some velours paper and follow Emma’s instructions. Thank you for getting me going again!
Catharina, I LOVE hearing that a blog has inspired someone to get back to painting!! Have fun with the velour papers!
Wonderful Catharina, always love to hear when someone is inspired to create! Happy pastelling!
Emma, thank you so much for your inspiring article on how you handle pet portraits and fur in particular. Your work is stunning and an inspiration. I have used a grey velour paper before, and like it quite a lot, but I have used it with a very light touch. (Though I have not used Hahnemühle. I do love my Uni’s!) It never occurred to me to push the pastel it into the paper. I found your comment on rubbing all the marks on each layer well into the paper to be intriguing. Do you rub it in with your finger or another pastel? Thanks again for your help. Thanks Gail, your Artist Features are a great treat!!
Glad you enjoyed this post by Emma Colbert Laura! And also all the guest articles – I sure do too 🙂
I’ll leave Emma to answer your question about rubbing technique.
Hi Laura, thank you for your kind words about my work and I’m glad this has inspired you. I use my fingers mostly for pushing the pigment into the paper. I sometimes use a paper stump to rub or score more heavily on a smaller area. But mostly I like the feel of the pastel and the paper!
Thanks for this article! Great tips. I paint a lot of animals and pets, and birds. Are those pastel sets exclusive to the UK?
Glad you enjoyed it Kathryn! Unison is pretty much available worldwide and I’m sure any retailer that carries Unison will be able to order in Emma’s sets. Otherwise, you can purchase directly from Unison Colour.
Brilliant blog post! I discovered Emma a short while back and if she were an old style tape recorder, she would be the dizziest artist known to mankind! I have rewound and fast forwarded so many times the tape would have snapped. hahaha
I love Emma’s space, I have been traveling and painting (w/c) aboard our catamaran home for 13yrs. throughout the Caribbean. I am not as neat as you Emma! The state of the salon after having a go with my Unisons… at times can be most resplendent with colour! lol
This has been especially helpful to me as I have so many snaps of both wild and domestic animals I’ve collected. This will be most helpful for painting my monkey friends.
Many thanks Gail for all you do for us, and many thanks to Emma for your sharing of your knowledge. I’ll go now…. before I write a tome!
Cheers, Val
LOL! Val your analogy to a cassette tape is brilliant and hilarious!! I’m sure Emma will love hearing she’s been so worn out and dizzy!
Gosh life on a catamaran around the Caribbean for 13 years. That’s quite something! Pretty much in awe of you. And good for you working on your pastels despite the cramped space.
Glad Emma’s post will inspire and motivate you to paint those animals you’ve been snapping.
And don’t ever hesitate to write lots. I love reading all responses, short and long! They keep me going ;-D
Wow Val, thanks for your message! 13 years on a catamaran! You know the cramped feeling of small spaces all too well! It’s not always a bad thing though, I find I never feel cramped in there because of the connection to the outdoors. It’s certainly nice to spread out a little though which is what we’ve been doing for a few months after 2 years on the road. Our winter has been so bad we decided to rent until it improves as solar power was not enough for work! Looking forward to being back on the road come summer though.
I love that you’ve worn out my tape already, I’ll have to keep making new ones!
Happy pastelling!
Emma
Excellent blog!!! I’ve been a fan of Emma’s work for a couple of years, now…..and really enjoy her escapades with Brocci, Harry and Andrew in their motorhome, Freda! I used to do some pet portraits in colored pencil many years ago….and this might give me courage to try a few in pastel. Emma’s landscapes are also ‘outta the park’…
Yay Curtis! Love that you follow Emma’s adventures 🙂 And yes, do pick up that courage to attempt some pet portraits in pastel. You might be pleasantly surprised especially if you use Emma’s work as a guide.
Really interesting and helpful post. I’m inspired to try capturing my Bedlington. Thank you.
That’s great to hear Cindy! I’m assuming a Bedlington is a breed of dog (says she with obviously little dog knowledge!). Go for it!
Emma and her work and Art are so great, so beautiful, so sophisticated, that does not exist words to describe her talent. What she does is ineffable. And the way of life, travel around the Europe, is extraordinary. Congrats dear Emma.
Thanks so much for commenting Eduardo and for your full appreciation of Emma and her work!
Wonderful. I love Emma’s work. I’ve just started using velour myself. These tips are so helpful. I do have a question for Emma, which is that, when you say you rub in all the marks on every layer, do you do that with your fingers, or do you ever use a tool like a blending stick? I am struggling to get the pastel “into” the velour so I wondered how light a touch is needed. Thank you!
Sorry I see someone else already asked the same thing! But anyway, thanks so much for sharing this piece 🙂
So glad you enjoyed the blog Keren!
Good question since as you saw, it was asked by someone else. I’m sure if you think of another question Emma will be happy to answer it.
Really enjoyed this blog. I discovered Emma a few months ago and joined her Patreon group. She’s a great teacher and it’s such fun learning pastels. Her work makes my heart sing. I’m finding the velour paper a bit challenging, but I’m determined to not to let it get the better of me 😉 Thank you both for great information!!
So glad to hear you enjoyed the post Deb! And I am sure Emma will be happy to hear your words. Perhaps Emma has other advice on using velour. I have not tried it myself but have heard its tricky to use.
That’s the spirit Deb! I think everyone finds velour a bit challenging at first as it behaves in a unique way. I hope that through the videos I’m making I can share all my tips on it while also showing the comparison to other papers when I get time to experiment a bit more! For now, keep doing what you are doing and getting a feel for it. It takes time to get those techniques down.
Thank you Gail for having Emma as a guest blogger! Really enjoyed this. Emma’s work is lovely and inspiring. I’ve watched her YouTube videos and now watch her on Patreon. I’ve never tried a velour paper, but just yesterday I received a ten-sheet pad of the Hahenmuhle. Looking forward to trying it, and a little nervous too 🙂 Must say that it has a very nice feel to it.
Glad you enjoyed Emma’s post Leslie!
Great that you now have the paper to try. Don’t be nervous (I know, easy to say). Just take a breath and start. You can always get more paper 🙂
Hi Gail, and Emma, please tell me where you get your plastic pastel boxes Emma? They are in the photo taken in your motor home.
Fabulous blog !
Sara
Hi Sara, glad you enjoyed the blog. And great question!
Hi Sara, thank you! The plastic boxes I use are actually for storing craft. I’ve done a video about them on my Youtube but if you search Ebay for Prym storage you’ll find them. Very useful for on the move!
Really helpful and interesting! Thank you, Emma. I’m glad to find out about your YouTube and Patreon channels, too. I’ll be signing up soon.
So happy to know you found Emma’s post helpful Gina. And I know Emma will be happy to see you following her on YouTube and Patreon!
I’ve never come across Emma’s work before – wow. A really helpful post, thanks. Am going to check out Emma’s YouTube videos for further inspiration.
Jan, I love helping others discover artists and so I’m delighted that Emma Colbert is a discovery for you!