‘human’ - techniques in pastel

What a great workshop we had yesterday!  Thank you to all who attended at Art of Phi, Maroochydore. It seemed like everyone was able to take away some new approached to rendering the figure in charcoal and pastel. My thanks to Janice for her assistance throughout the day and to Lena and Eva for modelling!

Like all mediums, pastel needs a learned process to get the most out of it. Of course, you can deviate as you deem appropriate, but the chances of ending up with ‘mud’ are high unless you follow some basic rules. The most important of these is to work dark to light and avoid smudging or blending your finished clean colours.

I like to use some basic colour theory to make those pastels work hard and the flesh tones really vibrant and lively. Paper with a good inherent or applied texture is a great adjunct to this as you can work your complimentary colours and keep them pure to achieve vibrant shadows, reflected light and flesh tones.

A good day’s hard work resulted in these beautiful artworks from the group!

Pastel is a great transitional medium for those artists looking to move from drawing into painting in oils or acrylics. Water colour – that is another story.

Congratulations to the artists for their hard work yesterday, it was brilliant! Thank you again! Great work!

Many to thanks to you all!

Regards,

Cam