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 I recently taught a pastel class as part of an "art sampler" class at the art center where I have my studio. The group of students took a different three hour class each Monday night for four weeks, rotating between teachers and mediums. The idea was to give them an introductory class while still allowing them to leave with a finished piece of art each evening. For me, this proved to be quite a challenge. To prepare I asked other artists who teach how they would approach this. One of the suggestions that I used was to have the drawing all done for each student so there would be no precious time spent on getting the drawing down correctly, but we could move right into applying pastel. The students were delighted and felt less nervous when they saw they didn't have to draw! After all, this was a class about how to paint with pastel, not a class on perspective or drawing skills. I also decided to have everyone work from the same photo reference, which is not what I usually do in my classes, but for this purpose it worked very well. All students except one had never used pastels before and had little to no experience in any other medium. It helped them to see how the others tackled the same exact subject.

In preparation, I photographed a very simple still life of two pears, one yellow green and one red (it was not practical to set up individual still lifes in the classroom). I chose this subject after seeing the colors of the starter set of pastels I had purchased (we had to supply all of the materials, so in order to save money I bought four sets of 12 pastels and cut them in half giving each student half sticks). I also liked pears because they are not symmetrical which would further calm students' fears of getting it perfect. Each student had a color and black and white photo attached to their easel as you can see in the photos. In my classes I spend a great deal of time teaching about values and edges using red and green value finders and black and white photos to make it easier to recognize correct values.

For this short class I also finished a painting of the pears beforehand and printed out the step by step instructions so the students could see exactly where we were headed. During the live demo I showed each step and had the students do it immediately after me before moving on to the next step. They told me this was extremely helpful because it broke things down into manageable steps they could easily follow.

Instead of finishing my demo piece completely I spent time at each person's easel helping them with theirs, either by lending an actual hand if desired or by gently guiding theirs.

We managed to finish on time and everybody was pleased with their creation and what is possible to do with pastels in such a short time.

I loved seeing the different styles and approaches even though we all worked on the same subject with the same medium. It was fun passing along my passion for pastels and taking the mystery and fear out of it. I believe at least a couple of the students will be taking other classes to continue exploring this beautiful and very forgiving medium.

Here are some photos from the class:

I set up each easel with a color and black and white photo of the still life, and some scrap pieces of Canson and sanded papers for the students to try strokes of pastel and test the different surfaces. The actual painting was done on Wallis sanded paper, my favorite surface. I also prepared a very simple contour drawing for each student to speed up the process with such a short time. I provided a handout of all the steps we would be completing so they knew exactly what was ahead and could repeat the steps at home with other paintings.

Step 1: Simple drawing in dark red pastel pencil

Step 2: Finding the values. I had the students do this step themselves, using the side of the pastel sticks to apply the value patterns in broad strokes

Step 3-4: Underpainting. Next we applied a layer of pastels in the local colors but exaggerating what we saw, then wetting it all with odorless turpenoid using old watercolor brushes (the sanded paper is hard on the brushes, so you would not want to use new ones). Unfortunately, I forgot to get a photo before the turpenoid was washed over it all.

Step 5: My finished painting, Pears I, 8 x 10"

These were the only colors we used: a 12 piece starter set plus I added the dark red and very light lemon yellow Nupastels . We never touched the brown and only used the black VERY sparingly in the darkest shadow areas making sure we overlayed it with color to give it some life.

Below are some photos of works in progress:

Judi working on her painting.                              I love all the colors Lori added to the background!

Diane was the only one who had used pastels before, but it had been eight years since she did!

Anita's painting on the left, and Nicole's piece on the right.

Rachel, like most of the others, had NEVER picked up a pastel stick before! I was amazed how well each student did. It was a great evening sharing what I love about this medium and the challenge of the class format was a great lesson to me as well.

If you teach art classes and have some other ideas on how to conduct a short class for beginners, please share it in the comments below:)