Over the summer I taught a pastel workshop for the Walden Art Club. It was such a pleasure to work with such a friendly and talented group of artists. As you can see by the results in the above feature image this workshop was a great success! This was the results of first day of painting. This was done with a limited palette (mostly nupastels) on pastelmat. On day two we worked on the final touches on our first painting and then we started in on another painting using the same limited palette, but using a different paper – pastel premiere. The majority of the students preferred the pastelmat. It was noted that the premiere wasn’t as accepting of harder pastels. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures from the end of the second day to post.
Here are some other photos taken during the workshop.
We worked on two small landscape pastel paintings. One on pastel premiere, and the other on pastelmat sanded paper. Reference photos were provided, but students were free to work from their own references.
Here are just a few of the still in progress paintings. Amazing; wouldn’t you agree!!!!
- Introduction to pastels, papers and tools.
- Using ipad/tablet for your photo reference.
- techniques
- Components of a good landscape painting
- Thumbnail sketches
- Underpainting
- 1 8×10 piece of pastel premiere (Donated by Global Art Materials)
- 1 9×12 piece of pastelmat paper (Donated by Lamarche Importation)
- Foam blending tools
- Photo references (digital images attached)
- finger cots
Samples of pastels from manufactures and distributors were available for your use during the workshop which included:
panpastels, Schmincke, Unison, Grumbacher, Rembrandt, Blue Earth, Diane Townsend and Great American and some Faber Castle polychromes.
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- Pastels (Demonstration of both paintings will be done using the 36 set of prismacolor nupastels) as the basis. We’ll apply softer pastels if needed, which will be available to you during the workshop.
- Standing or tabletop easel if you work from an easel. (I will be working from an easel).
- neutral colour drafting/painters tape to attach your paper to your backing Board (NO coloured masking tape please. These coloured tapes distract )
- Backing board (gatorboard or any smooth rigid surface) to tape your paper too
- Willow/vine charcoal for initial sketch onto paper. sketch/drawing paper for thumbnail sketch
- Bring you ipad/tablet if you want to use the digital reference photo (recommended)
- Hand protection if you wish: any of: finger cots, cotton glove, or latex. silicone hand protection – (gloves in a bottle, invisible glove), or baby wipes for cleaning your hands.
- Table cloth/newspaper/print for protecting your area
- 1 -1 1/2 inch (or so) flat brush and a small water container – for underpainting
- Small stiff bristle brush for lifting
- scissors
- ruler
- pencil
- Kneadable eraser