Pastel Innovations

Pastel Painting Techniques That Are Revolutionary, Fun and Easy! Designed for beginners considering using pastel for the first time, for experienced artists who may feel uninspired, and for anyone in between, the skills you will gain with Pastel Innovations, will help you build confidence and open your world so you can paint what CAN BE, not just what you THINK is. Explore the unique joys of pastel painting with: • An exploration of the basics: You'll expand your artist's vocabulary learning to use the elements and fundamentals of design to create beautiful, balanced paintings. • 20 simple exercises build off each other and help you grow as an artist, little by little, building confidence. • 40+ innovative pastel painting techniques: Feel inspired as you learn new approaches to using pastel to build up and reveal layers, incorporate monotypes as underpaintings, create texture that cannot be duplicated by drawing or painting, and more. • Thoughtful self critique: Questions, approaches and checklists that will result in better art, while at the same time making you a better artist. Leave your expectations behind and engage in the process of pastel painting with a newfound freedom to play and explore!

Pastel Painting Techniques That Are Revolutionary, Fun and Easy! Designed for beginners considering using pastel for the first time, for experienced artists who may feel uninspired, and for anyone in between, the skills you will gain with Pastel Innovations, will help you build confidence and open your world so you can paint what CAN BE, not just what you THINK is. Explore the unique joys of pastel painting with: • An exploration of the basics: You'll expand your artist's vocabulary learning to use the elements and fundamentals of design to create beautiful, balanced paintings. • 20 simple exercises build off each other and help you grow as an artist, little by little, building confidence. • 40+ innovative pastel painting techniques: Feel inspired as you learn new approaches to using pastel to build up and reveal layers, incorporate monotypes as underpaintings, create texture that cannot be duplicated by drawing or painting, and more. • Thoughtful self critique: Questions, approaches and checklists that will result in better art, while at the same time making you a better artist. Leave your expectations behind and engage in the process of pastel painting with a newfound freedom to play and explore!

Revel in the luminous and vibrant qualities of pastel with Ellen Eagle’s essential course in the history, techniques, and practices of the medium. In this comprehensive yet intimate guide, Eagle explores pastel’s rich but relatively unexamined past, reveals her own personal influences and approaches, and guides you toward the discovery and mastery of your own vision. In Pastel Painting Atelier, you will find: • Advice on basic materials: guidance on building, storing, and organizing a collection of pastels; choosing the right paper; and the importance of experimentation • Studio practice suggestions: ideas for creating your ideal working environment and recipes for making your own pastels and supports • Study of the working process: lessons on proportion, gesture, composition, color, application, identifying and correcting problems, and recognizing when a work is finished • Meditation on subject: cues for extrapolating the subtle details, presence, and temporal features of whatever you choose to paint • Step-by-step demonstrations: Eagle’s acute insights into her own works as they progress A magnificent selection of works by masters such as James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Rosalba Carriera, Mary Cassatt, and Eugene Delacroix augment this guide, as do works by contemporary artists including Harvey Dinnerstein, Elizabeth Mowry, and Daniel Massad. Aimed at serious artists, this guide enlightens, instructs, and inspires readers to create brilliant and sensitive works in the historic medium of pastel.

As artists, we have choices. There are very few rules that apply across the board. We can create highly realistic paintings, or perhaps more expressive paintings, or paintings that have very little basis in reality, including those that are totally non-representational. We can record color as we see it or as we’d like it to be. As pastel artists, we have even more choices. We can use a wide variety of pastels, strokes, surfaces, and techniques to create many different looks. The choices we make form the framework of our individual style, our signature as artists. Any subscriber to The Pastel Journal realizes how varied the medium of pastel can be. For the experienced artist, these articles are stimulating, offering possible ways to experiment with alternative approaches. For the beginner, the panoply of choices can be overwhelming. Painting is primarily an intuitive process. But intuition is gained through study and experience. Part of my impetus in writing this book has been to create a more structured approach to help those fairly new to the medium understand its many possibilities. The book is aimed at all levels of pastel artists. Beginners will find a wealth of helpful information and intermediate artists will gain insight into how to take their work to another level and develop a style. Many advanced artists teach pastel; the organization of ideas and the exercises included should be of assistance. I offer a variety of suggested approaches and sometimes make up terminology to describe my experiences with the medium. The instructions in the book are based on my preferences and the guidance that I offer my students. The diversity of styles and techniques evident in the paintings of contributing artists should make it clear, however, that there are many ways to successfully work in pastel. Having acknowledged the many possibilities, I want to note a few musts. Representational paintings must be well-drawn. Poor drawing skills cannot be overcome with lovely color or great technique. Likewise, paintings must have strong compositions, regardless of whether they are realistic, abstracted, or non-representational. Values must be properly interpreted to produce strong compositions and to use pastel to its full effect. And finally, pastel paintings must sing! Whether the applications are light and airy, or rich and painterly, it should be clear that the artist is in control of the medium and is using it to produce his or her desired look. For years I have resisted suggestions that I write a book. As a landscape painter, I knew that there were more authoritative books already available. And the growing popularity of pastel has led to so many resources, including online blogs, a biennial convention, and the wonderful Pastel Journal, mentioned above. What could I add to this? My personal training in pastel has been from weeklong landscape workshops with some of the leading pastel painters in the country. As a teacher in a community college, I am not teaching a particular style nor focusing on specific subject matter. Some of my students work with the landscape, but others do portraits or figurative work, while others prefer still life, or work abstractly. In dealing with this mixture, I’ve realized that there are different ways to approach one’s use of color, and this formed my first idea for creating a book. Furthermore, as a teacher, I’ve spent time experimenting with different surfaces, pastel brands, and techniques in order to make suggestions to students to help them find the look they want to achieve. I do not teach students to paint the way I do, but instead, try to share my experience and help them develop their own individual style.

Finally back in print for a new generation of artists, Ken Leslie's Oil Pastel is the definitive instructional resource on this wonderfully rich and versatile medium. Vibrant and portable, oil pastels are ideal for making quick sketches, producing stunning finished works, and make a great auxiliary tool for artists working primarily in other media. Boasting an astonishing array of color, value, and texture, oil pastels can be layered, scraped, washed, blended, and scumbled to achieve a seemingly endless variety of effects ranging from delicate lines to gooey, impasto crusts. Easily the most comprehensive oil pastel technique book available, Ken Leslie's Oil Pastel: Materials and Techniques for Today's Artist will teach you everything you need to know to create striking work that is authentically yours. Skipping over the flashy tricks and gimmicks that palely imitate true artistic skill, Ken dives headlong into a lively and engaging discussion of every aspect of the medium. With over 40 years' experience as a beloved teacher and collaborator, it's no wonder that every page of this book is jam-packed with substance and detail! Meticulous step-by-step demonstrations that accompany the sections on technique will show you how to use your pastels to achieve nearly any effect you desire. Ken can even teach you how to get a bright yellow to cover black! You will also have the chance to explore experimental approaches to oil pastel painting including, mixed media, 3-D constructions, unusual paper shapes, working with molten pastels, and much more. Perfect for all skill levels, Oil Pastel's thorough overview of color theory and basic painting techniques will help beginners get off to a strong start while advanced readers will surely delight in learning to make custom homemade pastels and new handling techniques. Ken Leslie's exciting and supportive writing style will have you paging through this book time and time again for tips, reminders, and lessons you missed the first time around! With color images of technical demonstrations, comparisons, the author's work, as well as the work of over 40 other artists, Oil Pastel: Materials and Techniques for Today's Artist truly has something for everyone.

Distinguished artist and teacher Alan Flattmann provides invaluable information about theory and technique as well as making crayons, designing proper studio lighting, and much more. Both amateur and professional artists will find this book informative and useful.Highlighted techniques include the painterly blended and the Impressionistic broken-color approaches. There are also illustrated discussions of concept and technique, mood and technique, mixed media, form and space, aerial perspective, modeling, and the importance of simplicity.

Guide to working with pastels, describing different types of pastels, offering advice on putting together a basic starter palette, and including 40 step-by-step lessons for developing technique and style.

A pure-pigment medium, pastels have been used by painters for centuries for the powerful and evocative colour they can produce. Professional artist and experienced teacher Mark Leach uses pastel to translate beautiful landscapes into striking, minimalist paintings with simple form and strong blocks of colour, while still retaining a sense of location and place. His simple techniques demonstrate how to move away from realism and towards using abstract painting to express mood and feeling. The book includes: Introduction: Beyond realism • Balancing the emotional and physical Composing and Developing Images: Composing a non-realistic image • Feeling and passion • Light, form and texture • Seeing colour • The journey to abstraction The Joy of Colour: Understanding the colour wheel • Colour moods • Colour palettes and mixes Subjects to Paint: Still life • Landscapes • Figurative painting • Colour on water The Art of Pastels: My studio • Pastels • Pure pigment • Composition • Sketching from life and landscape • Painting from sketchbooks and photographs • Light and tone • Mediums and supports for pastels • Pastel painting techniques