Pastel Summer School
Sign-up now for pastel tuition in Wiltshire this Summer 7th to 9th July and 14th to 16th July 2025.
The idea of my Pastel Summer School is to provide an opportunity for people to receive concentrated pastel tuition, but in a relaxed and friendly environment.
The Pastel Summer School is suitable for absolute beginners to experienced artists. You may have a lot of art knowledge, but have never used pastels, are frightened of using them, have tried them, but want to know more.
Whatever your background, you will find my pastel tuition very different. It is very thorough and we will look at all options, so it will be an intense couple of weeks, but a lot of fun.
The first week is designed to provide you with an in depth knowledge of pastels and then the second week will look at three particular areas Colour Theory, Landscape and Still Life in more detail.
You can choose to do the first or second week or both. The cost of each week includes two different sets of extraordinary Unison Colour Pastels, which I have designed specifically for my pastel tuition. If you do opt for doing both weeks then I am offering the 2 weeks at the discounted price of £700.
Please take a look at the Summer School details below and call or email me if you are interested in knowing more, or would like to book.
Painting with Pastels
Monday 7th July
The purpose of this first day is to provide a thorough grounding in what pastels are and becoming a pastel artist. So we will:
- Look at the history and manufacture of pastels
- Make a colour chart from your pastels
- Look at mark making, dexterity and feeling the pastels, finding expressive marks
- Try sgrafitto
- Try out 12 different pastel papers, providing a fantastic reference for your future work
- Look at cleaning and looking after your pastels and your pastel paintings
Blending Techniques
Tuesday 8th July
There can be a tendency to over blend simply beacuse it is such a pleasurable process!
This second day will show you when to blend and why.
We will use the technique for some still life, cloud and sky painting. Ensuring that by the end of the day you are confident with using this technique appropriately.
Alcohol Underpainting
Wednesday 9th July
Because pastels are soluble we can use alcohol to turn them into paint for underpainting.
We will look at using this technique for the first layer of our seascapes.
Then we will move onto making bold expressive marks, building up the layers, liberating our style and using our pastels in a more abstract way.
Colour Theory
Monday 14th July
With paint you can easily mix primary colours to make secondaries. Whereas pastels are all powder, so we have our colours made for us already.
But we still need to know what's cool, what's warm, what's light and what's dark. So really understanding the different emphasis of colour theory for pastels is a vital part of painting with and using them.
During the day we will:
- Make a colour wheel
- Look at primary, secondary and tertiary colours
- Learn to describe colour to understand which are used to make others
- Look at different tonal values, so we can create balanced pieces of work
- Look at using black, white and grey and why that's so important
- Look at simultaneous contrast and complementary colours
Landscape
Tuesday 15th July
We will be looking at composition, focal point, format, detail and tonal values.
If the weather is kind, we will start the day outdoors looking at the composition and actual elements, which make up a painting.
We will look at gathering research material through sketching and photos and how to improve your concentration and observation skills.
In the afternoon, we can use our photos and sketches to work from in the studio.
We will explore your use of pastels to paint the textures of the landscape.
We will also work on your ability to use colour effectively and be expressive in your paintings with your colour choices and mark making skills.
Still Life
Wednesday 16th July
We require quite a different set of observation skills for Still Life.
This is much more intense, because we are looking at something very close, so you really see all the details, textures and the lighting effect.
Our day will include:
- How to start
- How to put a still life group together
- Looking at format and composition
- Achieving depth
- Achieving the three dimensional quality of an object
- Scale and measuring for accuracy
- How to complete the painting using pastels