When the first glance at a pastel painting course is made, one thinks that the tools are extremely simple. Some sticks of colour. Quasi paper. That’s it. No finery of machinery. It is almost too easy in the start as you are missing something. Click here for helpful resources!
You’re not.
The majority of the courses begin with effortless strokes and the combinations, yet the final outcome is articulated in minor choices. How hard you press. When you are no more a mix. Where you leave the paper showing through.
Such information is not very exciting, yet it alters everything.
I remember once after one of the lessons when the teacher kept on telling me, do not blend yet. It felt wrong. All my instincts were urging me to smooth-out at once. Not withholding, however, in fact gave the painting a little more structure in the beginning.
That can also be taught in a good pastel painting course, however, it is not much of a point about timings.
It is not necessary to get everything mixed up. In fact, it would be more appropriate to be less frequent.
The other issue that is noteworthy is the rate of error. Pastels are not judgmental but they are there. After adding another layer after another without any consideration, the surface is clogged in the short run. Colors start to be dull and they are hard to bring back to their brightness.
You can arrive there by accident due to courses which are too much concerned with laying.
The more civilized ones have learnt to cease. Not strictly speaking, but merely sufficiently to make you notice it. It comes to a point where the painting is already good and you continue doing it just because you have always done it.
It is there that the bottom falls out.
The more the course will be taken, the more a person will be able to select the color intuitively. In the beginning, you use whatever palette you are provided. After a while you unconsciously begin to make it warmer or colder.
Such a change is minor, however, it is some progress.
I have also understood that not all pastel paintings classes are appropriate to all. Others stick to realism in excess, which may be slow to the more carelessly and expressive. Others round the building, and leave you to guess.
It is a distinction to find one that brings a balance between the two.
It also has the intellectual aspect which is not discussed much. Some sort of silent confidence is produced by routine lesson work. You are indecisive in every line. You take faster decisions but they might not be ideal.
It is more significant than good technique.
And, of course there are repetition segments of a course. Exercises, similar subjects. You get bored shortly when you want everything to be different. And in those repetitions there it is that things start to make a clicking.
You notice patterns. You are familiar with what is good and what is not so good.
All the problems will not be solved within a night by a pastel painting course. It will not stop you to make a mess piece or even question yourself. Yet it does provide you with a framework to go through those experiences rather than be stuck by them.
And there are times when that is all you need to carry on.