Painting Workshop Pastels (Collins painting workshop) [Paperback]

I can't say enough about this book. It doesn't matter if you are experianced or have never touched a pastel before, everyone can gain something from this wonderful book. Not only does she lay out the different materials and papers, she touches on just about everything such as color theory, perspective and composition. This is so much more than just a book on pastels. Beyond all the useful info, the pictures are just so inspiring and beautiful to look at. If you only buy one pastel book, let it be this one.

This is an excellent book to learn pastels with. The author begins by explaining that the purpose of her book is to "encourage you to learn by doing, just as you would in a practical painting workshop." It is filled with exercises and projects. Most of the chapters contain one main project along with several exercises.

The book begins with the usual materials and set-up chapter and then goes on to teaching techniques-ex: blending, stippling, gradations,layering, broken color, pastel over gouche, pastel over watercolor, pastel w/ charcoal, then gives a project to practice using the pastels followed by a self-assessment.

I will briefly describe some of the chapters and what they cover:
Understanding tone with simple exercises (lots of pictures too) on drawing fruits followed by a step-by-step demonstration on Fruit Tonal Study and another demo on Learning to See and Draw Tone.

Use of Colour--very well explained--everything from definitions to how complementary colors are used, to temperatures, colour harmony, colour retlationships, psychology of color. The demonstration that follows is quite thought-provoking, involving creating a collage out of black and white paper arrangements, and then making three color interpretations from it using: harmonious color, a primary color and it's complementary, an arrangement of warm and cool colors.

Space and Perspective: Teaching different types of perspective and how to measure, perspective construction, followed by a project of evaluating different perspectives (excellent exercises not covered in most art instruction books I have seen--this book will definitely make you a better artist.

Compostition. This chapter covers the elements of designing a strong painting (well taught), followed by project of exploring composition by analyzing other art for the elements discussed.

Sketching.
Choosing A Subject.
Still Life. Composing a still life, lighting, drawing, relating objects, negative shapes, massing forms and mastering edges, painting pattern, followed by a project on Still Life of Bread and Rolls and then a self-assessment. Flowers in Still life, with a good simplification of understanding structure of flowers and perspective and proportion when drawing flowers. The step-by-step demonstration on painting Hydrangeas, Apples and Grapes becomes more exciting--building on skills learned from previous chapters and explaining how the author adds vertical and horizontal lines to "help the structure and placement". There is another still life flower project, but not step-by-step, in which the author leaves the artist to decide the exact subject matter and arrangement as a teaching tool.

Gardens. How to simplify what you see, where to begin, followed by a step-by-step demo of a Summertime Garden, along with a lesson on color harmony, foliage and such issues as color hue and temperature and rhythms created by plants, characteristic shapes, etc. A guided project of painting a garden, with concentration on two aspects of painting a garden scene: 1. planning, making thumbnail sketches, with a checklist of such things as making sure you have a focal point, direction of light, etc.., 2. simplifying the scene, followed by self-assessment.

Landscapes. The author has a unique way of teaching the student how to determine what the emphasis of the landscape painting will be, without just diving in without thought, explaining about "a sense of place", cloud and sky perspective, time of day, colour, etc., followed by a stepped demo on "Light, Clouds and Rain". There are several other lessons concerning creating a sense of place, including people, seascapes, etc.

I found this book to be one of the best pastel lesson books I have seen. This book is useful not only to learn pastels, but also for building basic art skills and learning to see with an artists eye. I highly recommend this book.

A practical and comprehensive instruction pastel workbook. Nicely laid out and easy on the eye too. The author has in mind the beginner who also needs encouragement to paint as well as adding ideas about creativity to the work not just frontal art instruction and just techniques. Definately a new generation of instruction where development of ideas, creativity, inspiration, confidence building, self assesment, demonstrations are all integrated. I also enjoyed looking at the examples used to instruct pastel painting and these were very varied giving a wide idea about what can be done with pastels. I really recomend this book for the beginner pastel artist as well as an art instructor who wants to develop an art workshop and needs some ideas. Jason Alster- author-
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