Gettin' Sketchy / Jack-O'-Lantern on 10-14-2026

[robichon]

Have you noticed how many times Matt and Ashley practice before they do the actual Gettin’ Sketchy program? There is a huge advantage to this because they can figure out what materials will work best for what the project is. So before tonight’s lesson we have the reference (which I plan to do as 5x7). We also know it will be on black paper and we will use pastels. For many of us, there are a lot of options regarding paper and pastels.

I decided to do some trial and error to figure out my specific materials. For the paper I will be using Canson, MiTeintes, Velvet, color: charcoal black. It’s a really nice paper that can accept a lot of layers. Layers are important so that the black background does not show thru on the bright yellow and glowing orange.

Then the question of brand of pastels. I have an extra scrap of the paper I will be using and tried out several brands to get the most intense yellow on the black paper. What I decided to use:

Stick pastel had the best coverage and my preferred was REMBRANDT soft pastel sticks (Lemon Yellow), and for finer detail or if I prefer a pastel pencil my favorite was Stabilo, CarbOthello (the yellow color is 1400/205).

Hope this might be helpful for some of you.

Terri Robichon

[robichon]

Hi Forum Friends - Here is my finished 5x7 drawing. I had the line drawing done before the lesson started. It took about 3 hours from start to finish.

Terri Robichon

[Vgentry58]

That looks fantastic Terri!

[robichon]

Thanks so much for the kind words Valerie @Vgentry58. Much appreciated.

Terri

[Meme5]

@robichon

Absolutely wonderful!! Love the glow you created!

Also love the time you took to show the prep process before the actual lesson, thanks for always being so helpful!

Sonia

[robichon]

Hi Sonia @Meme5
This was the first time I did any preparation with material selection ahead of time, and it was worth every minute because it made a huge difference in the results I achieved. I’m going to make a habit of doing this for future Gettin’ Sketchy lessons.

Terri Robichon

[Meme5]

Here’s my jack-o’-lantern from gettin’ sketchy

It’s on black canson miteintes touch which FYI it holds less layers of pastels than canson velvet or pastelmat if you ever decide to try it. It was fun nevertheless.

I used a sennelier pastel stick for the bright orange.