Fall 2024 Newsletter

 Pan Pastels. A unique alternative

As I write this blog it is hot outside. I am soooo looking forward to fall. I like the cool, crisp mornings and sweater weather in the afternoon. Besides, my flower beds are reaching "spent-hood," so it's time to put in some autumn plants and decorations.

Last summer I wrote an article on soft pastels, providing lots of information regarding drawing (painting) with pastels, including how to work with pastel sticks, pastel pencils and even the best paper (ground) to use. I touched upon a fairly new product called Pan Pastel and how it serves as a good alternative to working with traditional methods.

The pans
The biggest difference of Pan Pastel is namely the pan where the color lies. Made of the same ingredients as the stick and pencil, Pan Pastel comes in fairly good-sized pan, packed with solid soft pastel (some refer to this as chalk). See below to view one such pan.

Normally, when creating a pastel painting, you use your stick to lay down the color. I may also use cotton swabs or a blending with my cots covered finger. However when using PanPastels, you use applicators.

I like the intensity of the colors. Using applicators also seem to give me more control. But best of all, I don't have pastel dust building up on my picture. If I do, it's minor and I simply take my ground (paper) and tap it against a slip sheet I have below.

The color palettes

The pastels come in a handy pallet that I can use immediately. There are several themes: basic colors (see below), sketch & tone, earth colors, metallic, skin tones, designer color and more.

Completed Project

Just recently I created a still life with an apple and some cherries. It was fun and easy to create. I would highly recommend this product. BTW, you can see a demo on this on my YouTube channel.

What's Coming this Fall (2024)

Students have selected an autumn theme, so we will be covering leaves, gourds, landscapes, sunflowers and holiday cards, using graphite pencil, colored pencil, pastels, watercolor and charcoal. It should be fun. 

Classes will be conducted within a five-week session. The session fee is $99. Each class within the session is $20 (give or take a dollar). Individual classes (taken separately) are $25 each. See details below.

Identifying colors

I have covered color mixing before in this publication, Studio Muses (see a treasure trove of color ideas in my blogger log). This past class session we again covered color theory and mixing in depth, including the Isaac Newton and the CYMK* color wheels as well as how to make greys and browns from complementary colors, color temperature and so on. 

One of the most common mistakes I think people make when they buy a new travel tin of watercolors is not identifying the color cakes in the half pans. Very often knowing the colors you have are very instructive, which one has more red it in, more green, more blue. Don't believe me? Here is a picture of my Lukas half-pan set and the color swatches I've created to truly examine what each color offers.

The primaries are lemon yellow, magenta, cyan. 

Below are the swatches. While our computer screens can distort color, I want you to take a moment and really "see" the colors below. Notice how red in the cadmium red is as opposed to the magenta or alizarin crimson. Look a the blues, the ultramarine blue is more of royal blue as opposed to the cyan or Prussian blue. The burnt umber is far more reddish leaning and darker than the raw umber (do you see the green in the raw umber?)

So why is this important It really makes a difference in color mixing. I personally like working with cyan, magenta and lemon yellow. While the chart above doesn't show how reddish cadmium yellow is, it can make a difference when mixing. So, just for grins, I'm offering the following chart. I took cadmium yellow, lemon yellow, ultramarine blue, cyan blue and mixed them. The greens seem to be the same but when you look closer, there is a difference. I've also include mixing black with yellow to make olive green and mixing burnt umber with ultramarine blue to create a dark gray. 

Why not try this yourself? In fact, I challenge you to see what happens when you mix your colors randomly. Does anything change? Maybe take notes to remember what you did. This is definitely the fun part of color mixing!

*C=Cyan, Y=Yellow, M=Magenta, K=Black (the same colors that appear in your color printer

What's coming up?

2024 Summer Session