Pastels are not what people think they are. People who have not used pastels before think they are hard to work with. They are powdery. It seems like they will make a mess if your hand is not perfectly steady. The thing that makes pastels hard for beginners is also what makes them great. This is because pastels are very sensitive to touch. Click this link!

Watching videos online is not the same as taking a class. When you take a class you learn things in an order. You start with one thing. Then build on it. You do not just learn a bunch of tricks. You actually learn how to use pastels.

Most classes start with pastels. Hard pastels are easier to control than pastels. This is because hard pastels are not as sensitive to pressure. So when you are starting out it is easier to use pastels. It is like practicing in private before you perform in front of people.

The kind of paper you use is also important. There are different kinds of paper such as sanded surfaces, velour and Canson Mi-Teintes. These papers are not all the same. They are different in how they hold the pigment how they respond to layers and how easy it is to fix mistakes. A good class will show you what these papers are like than just telling you.

Color is a part of using pastels. Pastels do not mix together like kinds of paint. Instead you put colors next to each other and your eye blends them. This is a change in how you think about color. You have to think about where to put each color than how to mix them. This makes it easier to see things like shadows and highlights.

When you are learning pastels you start with subjects. You might draw a life like a bowl of fruit or a vase. These subjects may seem boring. They are actually very helpful. One student drew the teacup for three months. By the end she was not just drawing a teacup she was drawing the light.

As you get better you can move on to complicated subjects, like landscapes. Landscapes can be fun to draw the sky. The sky is easy to draw. It can be very beautiful. Drawing trees and leaves is harder. It gets easier when you start to see the big shapes, rather than individual leaves.

Finally you can draw portraits. Pastels are very good, for drawing skin tones. If you are careful you can make your portraits look very realistic and beautiful. If you are not careful something will look wrong and you will not be able to fix it. Pastels, patience and practice are all important if you want to learn how to use pastels. Pastels require patience and practice to master.