The majority of pastel painting classes instruct layering as a some sort of holy rite. Light pressure, do it at a slow pace, blend it, do not hurry. I went along with all of that. Paid for it too. And still somehow my work had seemed. dull. Overworked. I was very fine at dusting, and not painting. Visit our recommended site related our campaign!

After some time, it became annoying in a silent manner. Not dramatic. Nothing but that little gnash of thought that I was doing everything right and not getting anywhere.

Another expensive course did not result in the change. It was because I did something that I was not supposed to do: worked harder, sooner.

That’s it. That’s the technique.

I started committing earlier and not going under the initial layers. Making the more daring strokes at the outset. With no violence, but not in vain. Pastel has that weirdiness about him–you must not be too gentle with him at first, or he never wakes up.

In this situation, the surface counts. Even when you are on sanded paper it may even take on more pigment at first. This is barely emphasized in the majority of courses. They have got you into this safe rut and they keep on putting another layer on it until the tooth is dead and the whole thing is muddy anyway.

Once I inverted that strategy the situation changed rapidly.

Ten passes were unnecessary to make colors richer. Shapes felt clearer. I ceased to mix everything into a mush of nothingness. And, frankly, I did not have to spend a lot of time correcting the mistakes, as the amount of them was reduced.

A psychological change also takes place. It will no longer be necessary to worry about each mark when you make up your mind. You have more faith in your hand. It is a small sound that alters the development of the entire picture.

I recall one composition–a mere landscape. I would have started with a slight groundwork, and filled in the sky. It was just a mid-tone blue, moderate pressure, broad strokes that I walked in with that day.

It was wrong approximately thirty seconds.

Then I put in contrast. A blacker streak on the horizon. Suddenly it snapped into place. No endless blending. No overthinking.

It is the part that the majority of pastel painting classes do not actually prepare you on, that clumsy stage where everything just is wrong, until it is rectified. They attempt to iron that out, yet that tension is quite a good thing. It provokes you to retaliate instead of retiring.

What is one more thing that I no longer do? Blending everything with my fingers.

Seriously. That practice in itself was killing my work. It softens texture and mixes colors in such a way that is safe yet proves to be dead. Now where I selectively mix, not at all. Allow the strokes to remain in view. Give the paper time to do some of the work.

No, I do not lose the lessons I had in those classes. Just… differently. The building assists, but the actual transformation came about by violating the rules at the appropriate time.

Funny how that is.

It is not necessarily your materials or your skills that can make you get stuck. Maybe you are holding back too prematurely in the process.