Bring your pastel landscapes to life through a better understanding of key artistic principles. We’ll discuss design and composition, painting fundamentals, the importance of accurate drawing and those valuable tools: color, value, intensity, and temperature, among others. We’ll experiment with and have fun exploring a variety of painting approaches. Students will paint from their own photo reference materials, paintings, and field studies. Lisa will lead the class in an exploration of materials, including pastel brands, papers and techniques. Class time will include demonstrations, one-to-one instruction, and group critique. Students Will Bring the Following Supplies Pastels- Lisa uses a mix of brands in a Heilman Backpack kit for her plein-air work and will demonstrate using these during class. Bring a set of 60-90 pastels of any good professional brand, covering as many colors, shades and tints as possible in values from light to dark. Or- bring what you have! Wet Paint on Grand Ave in St Paul has a great selection of pastels, paper and other supplies. Brands I rely on include Unison, Great American and Girault among others. French Easel, or other lightweight easel set up. An a-frame easel and small side table can work. Pastel paper Pastel Premier ( Italian clay and white), UART and Multimedia Artbord Pastel Panel are the papers I always have on hand. LaCarte is also good. There are many good pastel papers to choose from, make sure it is sanded paper. For this class you may use your preference, 8×10, 9×12 or larger. 9×12 is a good standard. Drawing board, wood, foam core or Gatorboard to use as a mounting board to paint on At least a few inches larger than your largest paper- 2 or more of these come in handy. Glassine or tracing paper or something to protect your paintings while carrying them Subjects to paint: bring a variety of (your own) photographic images to work from. Other Equipment Small sketchbook Graphite pencils, vine charcoal for sketching in composition before painting Masking Tape, black artists tape Viva paper towels for painting Viewfinder, or two right angle pieces of cardboard or matboard and some clips to hold them together to use for “framing” your composition while planning your painting. The viewcatcher (brand name) works well available at Wet Paint. Tombow ABT markers N15-N55-N75, or any 3 quality markers, light gray, mid-gray, and dark gray.
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