Art Tips/Techniques & More

Question – Beginner Pastel supplies What supplies do I need to get started? Answer The Absolute basics Supplies is usually the 1st problem area that new artists face with pastels. With other mediums you usually only have one thing to get, pencils or paints (there might be different manufacturers) But with Pastels we have pastel pencils, pastel sticks and also PanPastels. So what do you really need? Well the answer is simple, if you want to draw realistic animals or other subj

A little gift for you all 😊 I’m really excited to share this because it’s something I’ve wanted to do for years... my very first pastel course. And yes, it’s REALLY completely free! The response has honestly blown me away. It's only been available for about a month and already over 2,750 have joined. This isn't a trial or a teaser course. It's a proper step-by-step pastel course aimed at beginners, but anyone is welcome to join in. You can work through it at your own pace, e

I thought I would share this tip on using gouache with pastels. So your 1st question is probably"why even use gouache?" and that is a good question, because at 1st it looks like just using black pastel would be fine. And it would if you could keep it clean. The trouble is with subjects like the one in the photo, is that it's almost inevitable that some black will smudge out into the lovely coloured areas, and if instead you saved doing the black until the very end, it might

The more complicated the subject, the more I like to break it down into simple concepts and stages. Many ask me, "How dark should the under-layer be? What colour should it be?" Well ..... think of the underlayer as looking like a slightly out-of-focus reference photo. You see the basic colours and tonal values, but the details disappear. That's what the underlayer should look like - see photo above. The underlayer should still look 3D and show the lighting effect. But no