Enjoy a recap of the realism segments of the 3rd Annual Pastel Live, an unforgettable event for artists of all levels of painting with pastels. Pastel Live is a virtual art conference that took place August 17-19, but don’t worry – you can catch the replays at PastelLive.com now!
Pastel Live 2023 Realism Highlights
What are values? What is hue? And saturation? Jessica Masters explained the qualities and characteristics of color, its role in your work, and how to assign a value to a color – especially if it’s really bright.
Corey Pitkin walked us through his technique for “capturing a likeness” in a realistic portrait painting. He used a medium-toned paper, which he prefers for portraits after having studied Rembrandt’s work.
In “The Magic of Mark Making,” which is how you apply pastel to paper, Vianna Szabo shared her methods for applying pastels. She explained how to make it easy to draw shapes, mix and blend colors, control edges, and correct mistakes along the way.
Floral artist Stephie Clark welcomed us to her happy place – her art studio, that is – with her “dusty little friends” to recreate the beauty that she sees in nature. In this paint-along, she worked from back to front, dark to light, guided by a photo reference she took of fuchsias while in Singapore.
Wendy Shalen gave us a demo on a French drawing technique called “aux trois crayons,” which is black and white charcoal on sanguine Conté. She explained, “I believe the value of this is excellent for both beginners as well as advanced artists, so one can distinguish between black and white value; a dark, a middle, and a light; and color values.”
Tip: Wear a vinyl glove to protect your hand when you’re working on a sanded surface. Bill Schneider shared this and much more in his lesson on how to start a portrait from a photo reference, building in the coolness of the Caucasian model’s face with layers of light blue, orange, and pink. Bill shared that he created the reference photo using a program called Midjourney AI, which has free and paid versions.
“My life drawing teacher, Bill Parks, always used to say ‘You’re the artist; you’re in charge of quality control,’” Bill said in the chat. “We need to make our paintings look good…not necessarily perfectly accurate to the reference.”
We closed each night with our famous Cocktail Hour and Paint Along, where we chatted over Zoom while many painted from a shared reference photo; and there was an ongoing art auction with paintings from our faculty – an unbelievable opportunity to own a contemporary masterwork.
“Pastel Live is beyond incredible!!!” ~ Marilyn C.
In addition to the pastel painting demonstrations, we heard a major announcement about the next Streamline-sponsored epic online art event: Realism Live, taking place November 9-11, 2023 (with an Essentials Techniques day on November 8 and a new art auction!). You don’t want to miss it!
We’d like to thank every single one of our attendees and sponsors for being a part of this event – you are the ones who help us keep going, as we all continue to inspire each other to grow, learn, and connect in this incredible world of art. We hope to see you at Realism Live, along with more incredible teachers that we’re bringing to you.
