Pastel painting tips from the class

Start with:

• where is the horizon line
• look for big simple shapes
• what is the darkest shape
• where is the lightest light
• divide the big masses
• sketch with soft vine (or willow) charcoal
• force yourself to work with the sides of your pastel for a while
• start adding pastel lightly, adding more and more pigment as you move along

General pastel painting techniques:

• try not to get closer than an arms length away
• step back often to look at it
• it is much easier to tighten up a painting than it is to loosen one up that is tight (stay loose)
• work from dark to light
• wipe your hands with diaper wipes between every color
• create a variety of strokes
• hard edges draw the eye and command a tremendous amount of attention
• soft edges cause the eye to pass through so either blend or shift values by gradient steps: both will have the same effect on getting the eye to move through
• every painting is an abstraction of nature
• it’s all about relationships with neutrals
• “nothing is interesting without those stable neutrals that hold everything together”
• when you go over previous marks, do the next marks in a different direction
• put thicker marks over thinner
• don’t be stingy with the pigment
• don’t blend anything until you are really far along
• keep going and going and going until there is nothing left to do on it