Pastels
- Teacher: Mary Shea
- Class Length: 4 week session
- Class Days: Begins Friday, May 9
- Time: 10:00 – 12:30 pm
“Color in pictures is like enthusiasm in life.”
Vincent van Gogh
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This short series of classes is planned around the joyful experience of drawing and painting at the same time.
Using soft pastels, students will work directly from still life set ups in the studio as well as from the work of other artists, especially those who use pastel. We will play with color harmonies, regard paper as an aspect of the image, and enjoy the fact that working with pastel is both drawing and painting. The class will put color practice before color theory, but we’ll pay attention to color contrasts and the color wheel and consider why Bonnard said, “Drawing is feeling. Color is an act of reason.”
Pastels are pure pigment with binder (gum arabic, methyl cellulose). Dry pastels, because of the high pigment concentration, reflect light without darkening refraction, allowing for very saturated colors.
Soft (NOT hard pastels) and dry (NOT oil pastels) are appropriate for this class.
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 has inexpensive charcoal and pastel paper, white – 9” x 12”, 24 sheets or 11” x 14”, 24 sheets
Hannemuhle Ingres: pastel paper about 9” x 12” and 12” x 18”in a range of 9 subtle colors, somewhat more pricey.
Pastels: soft pastels; be sure they are soft ones! Dry, not oil.
Suggestions:
Sennelier Soft Pastels – Set of 20, Assorted Colors, Half Sticks @ $40.00 at Blick if in stock; these are beautiful, very pigmented and quite soft.
Rembrandt Soft pastels – Set of 15 whole sticks, Assorted Colors; about $40 at Blick if in stock, these are less soft than the Sennelier
Vine charcoal: soft thin sticks, usually come in a box of 12
Eraser: Pink pearl; Staedtler Mars or something similar
Drawing by Mary Shea
