Pastel Painting Essentials

The Pastel Painting Essentials course will teach you the fundamental pastel painting techniques that you can then apply to any subject matter you choose to paint. We will cover materials, blending, colour choices, and tonal values so that you can build a solid foundation in the medium.

Many of the lessons in our other pastel courses will assume you know the basics taught here, so this is a great place to start if you are new to pastel painting. The course covers hard and soft pastel sticks and pastel pencils. Please see the Materials section for details of the materials used and suggestions.

Materials

You may find it helpful to watch the course through once before ordering any equipment. That way, you can choose materials you would like to work with based partly on the course content and demonstrations.

Pastels

• Soft pastels: A set of 48 (or 64) half-size Inscribe soft pastels, or similar soft brands such as Sennelier, Unison, or Daler Rowney. These premium brands are excellent but more expensive, so you might like to begin with a “Landscape” set if one is available. Michael suggests a minimum of 36 colours to ensure you have a good range of subtle tones.
• Conte Carrés crayons – 24 colours (optional). These are a slightly harder soft pastel.
• Pastel pencils – 24 colours (optional). Derwent or another reputable manufacturer is
  recommended.

Surfaces

This course encourages experimentation so you can see how your pastels behave on different surfaces. Loose sheets can be useful for trying a variety of textures. Suggested options include:

• Canson Mi-Teintes pastel paper (light, mid, and dark tones).
• Daler Rowney Ingres paper (also in a selection of tones).
• Sanded paper.
• Velour.

Other optional surfaces include watercolour paper, Mi-Teintes Touch paper, brown paper, sugar paper, gesso-primed board, textured mount card, and pastel board. New surfaces appear regularly, and many are worth exploring.

Other Optional Equipment

• A damp cloth for wiping your hands.
• Kitchen roll for cleaning pastels.
• A drawing board.
• Masking tape.
• Scissors and/or a craft knife (if you intend to trim your paper).