Pastel: Extended Techniques

• Teacher: Mary Shea
• Class Length: 4 week session
• Class Days: Begins Thursday, October 29th
• Time: 10:00 – 12:30 pm

“Color in pictures is like enthusiasm in life.”

Vincent van Gogh

—

This short series of classes is planned for artists who have already worked with pastel and would like to take the medium further. In music, “extended techniques” are ways of producing sound on instruments to achieve effects that standard or traditional techniques cannot produce. This four-week session will be an opportunity to use “extended techniques” with pastel in ways that may surprise and inspire you. Using soft pastels and other traditional drawing materials, students will work in less traditional ways from still life and the model as well as from the work of other artists, especially those who use pastel unconventionally.

Prerequisites: Some drawing experience as well as experience working with pastels.

Materials:

Paper: a pad of charcoal or pastel paper. 9” x 12” or 11” x 14” or 12” x 18”; look for paper that has a textured or ‘laid’ surface, not smooth.
Suggestions:
Strathmore charcoal and/or pastel paper, 9” x 12”, 24 sheets or 11” x 14”, 24 sheets.
Hannemuhle Ingres: pastel paper 9” x 12” or 12” x 18” in a range of 9 subtle colors.
Other papers you may have on hand: watercolor or printmaking papers, for example.
The ‘sanded’ pastel papers can be used but they don’t allow for many of the surface changes we’ll be experimenting with.

Pastels: dry pastels (i.e., not oil pastels), preferably soft pastels; if you have some pastels at home, do bring them and if they are soft pastels, all the better!
Suggestions:
Sennelier Soft Pastels – Set of 20, Assorted Colors, Half Sticks; these are beautiful, highly pigmented and quite soft.
Rembrandt Soft pastels – Set of 15 whole sticks, Assorted Colors; these are less soft than the Sennelier.

Vine charcoal: soft
Fixative: Only bring non-toxic, casein-based fixative. See below for an example. There is an aerosol spray top bottle that makes an even coating much easier.
“Degas SpectraFix Non-toxic Fixative contains casein, water, and alcohol. The formula is an update on a recipe used by French Impressionist Edgar Degas. It seals and protects your artwork while leaving colors brilliant! Degas Fixative is perfect for chemically sensitive people. You can spray it indoors and keep on working because the fixative does not release toxic fumes or odors. The spray dries to a hard, water-resistant, matte finish; and provides the traction you need to apply extra layers of dry media”.
Eraser: Pink pearl; Staedtler Mars or something similar.
Etc: When possibilities occur to you as we work in class, you may decide to bring other materials in addition to those on this list.