**This course is now full. Registration requests will be added to our waitlist.

This class celebrates the pastel medium in its application and approaches. Traditional techniques will be the foundation of instruction, colour and light the focus. Discover how to solve problems of composition and colour, create the illusion of depth, and master lost and found edges. Under-painting with acrylic and/or watercolour is explored.

Artist quality pastels produce intense colour with an immediacy that most other mediums can’t match. Demonstrations are designed to give students the tools to develop an understanding of this medium.

$150.00

Students should bring:

PASTELS: Bring as many of your soft pastels as you can. It’s better to have too many pastels than not enough. Colour range is more important than size of sticks, (no oil pastels). I use an assortment of Schmincke, Sennelier, Unison, Dianne Townsend, Terry Ludwig and Great American. These pastels are very soft and facilitate my technique. 

PASTEL PAPER: Bring both white and coloured sanded pastel paper. Your choice for the coloured sheets, a midtone value is best. The white sanded paper needs to be able to take a wet medium for under-painting so any of the following 3 types would be suitable: In white: Wallis, Art Spectrum Colourfix, Clairfontaine Pastelmat. You can buy pads of quality pastel paper in different shades including white. If you are buying large sheets of paper, please cut to either 8”x10” or 9”x12” before the workshop.

MISCELLANEOUS: Neutral coloured (not green or blue) masking tape or bull clips to attach paper to your support board. Drawing pencil, sketchbook/notebook, old bristle brush (½” approx.), a small tray to hold your pastels while you work, (old tin lid, ice cream bucket lid, etc), small watercolour set, gouache or liquid acrylic for under-painting, 1” brush – an old acrylic brush works well – the sanded surface of the paper will destroy regular watercolour brushes! Support board big enough to tape your pastel paper to, a soft scrap of material for wiping pastels, water container and small palette for using with watercolour/acrylic. Bring vinyl gloves if you don’t want to get pastel on your hands.

Deserres sells some good quality pastels and pastel paper. Stay away from student grade pastels; they will not give you the painterly effect that the artist quality pastels do.

Bookings

Sharon Fox Cranston

Sharon Fox Cranston is a visual artist based in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. She is multi-disciplined and works in oil, acrylic and pastel. Sharon is a Signature member of the Society of Canadian Artists, the Pastel Society of America, and a designated Master Pastelist of Pastel Artists Canada. She has been creating fine art professionally for over 20 years.

Her impressionistic style actively challenges the viewer to interpret the work for themselves. Sharon’s focus is on the texture, colour and rhythms of the rural landscape.

“Creating art brings me joy, it gives my visual perception of the world a voice. I enjoy challenging myself to grow, to experiment, to explore new ways of looking at the world. Each one of my paintings is a visual record of where I’ve been, what I’ve seen, and how I’ve tried to express that moment to others.”

Bookings

Registrations for this workshop are now closed.