Hi guys, I haven’t been very active on the forum lately but I thought I’d post my first try at a soft pastel painting using a reference photo of Matt’s from his pastel drawing course. I used mostly Rembrandt pastels with just a few Senneliers on Canson mi-tientes, it’s 9” x 6”. I was hoping that some of you very kind and more experienced members might comment on whether you think I’m on the right track with this.
Kind regards
Cathy
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Hello Cathy, thank you so much for sharing your fabulous pastel drawing.
Absolutely yes to your question as to whether you’re on the right track on this, and here are my thoughts.
I checked the reference photo you mention and I believe that your drawing is much better than the photo in its richness in colour and value nuances. I prefer your drawing to the one that was completed by Matt because your version appears to slightly emphasize the wildness and naturality of the scene compared to Matt’s version, which strikes me as being a well-kept garden. I guess Matt drew this scene this way because he wanted to simplify the drawing process as he drew this piece as a teaching material maybe?
Anyways, my only suggestion for improvement for this particular piece is to add some more pastels to fill the unpainted areas that stand out as white spots here and there. As a reference, would you please check the following link where I showed one of my own pastel works:
For the recent 4-5 years I’ve been drawing only ballpoint pen works, but before that I was doing a lot of pastel works.
You can probably see that there are not white spots left either in the brown columnar joints areas nor in the green leaves areas at the bottom. This is what I mean by “fill the unpainted areas”.
In my very first pastel works which I drew in a local pastel class, I did leave the white unpainted areas too as you can see below:
Fortunately, though, I was able to examine the actual pastel drawings done by my teacher then in the classroom and I found out how neatly the surface was covered with pastels.
So I started practices to cover a small drawing paper with pastels completely. These are something I drew as part of my practices:
I wish I could show you the actual pieces, not the digital version, because then you can see how “thick” the pastels are put on the papers. I frantically repeated layering pastels over and over and over so that the work would not appear to be unfinished. I also learned that by layering pastels this way, you can fully show the real depth of the colour of the pigments.
After I practiced layering a single colour properly I moved on to the practices of gradation, colours mixing, and different colours layering without mixing. Here are some of the results of my practices:
So I think it is really good to try the course materials first to quickly grab what it is like to draw with pastels and see whether you would like to be good at it or not in the first place. But once you decide that pastels are the art medium of your choice, I think it is better to follow the Descartes’ policy: “divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it”; i.e. identify the basic skills used to complete the pastel artwork which includes a lot of information, so much so that it makes you confused about where to start, how to finish etc… Learn the skills, then refine your learned skills to your best by drawing some simple subjects. Then you’re ready to draw some challenging subjects:
Hope this is of some help for your future projects.
Thank you again for sharing your fantastic pastel work! 
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Hi Cathy @cmhales7
This is a wonderful drawing and all I was going to comment on was that you could add more layers to get rid of the little white dots of the paper showing thru. But, by the time I got to the computer, Maki was kind enough to go into great detail about this. Maki is a wonderful person to learn from, and Cathy you have great talent with this media. Please keep in touch with all of us here on the forum.
Terri Robichon
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Cathy, I am not more experienced in art but I can definitely tell you are on the right track. This is a wonderful piece of artwork. Thank you for sharing this with us.
Jim
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Oh Maki thank you so much for your kind and encouraging comments, and for going to the trouble of writing such an in-depth response. I understand what you mean about covering all of the surface properly with the pastels but the paper was starting to resist any further layers and I was worried the piece might start to get a bit “muddy”. Your pastel drawings are lovely and very inspiring. May I ask what brand of pastels you used?
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Thanks Terri, your comments are much appreciated and you are right about learning from Maki, I have always admired her pen drawings but didn’t realise she was so good with pastels. This is such an amazing group to be a part of. I did enjoy working with pastels and plan to continue learning more about them.
Cheers Cathy
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Thanks James, you’re very kind.
Cathy
Hi Cathy, thank you so much for your response and I am glad to see that my feedback helped 
I used schmincke mainly because they are super-soft pastels and stick to the surface extremely well.
For details I used some other harder brands as introduced in this thread:
Yes, the choice of pastels is super important. I remember how difficult it was to cover the surface completely while I used Faber Castell, the first brand recommended by my teacher back then.
I strongly recommend that you try shmincke. I’m sure you’ll be amazed at how easy it is to make the surface “whitedotless” with this brand.
All the best,
Maki
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And many thanks again Maki, you’re incredibly generous with your time. 
Cheers Cathy
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I love this building with all of the unusual angles, sepia colors and the barren trees. Such an interesting piece!
Maki,
AMAZING!!! 
your works are absolutely amazing!
Sonia
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Cathy @cmhales7, it is a beautiful drawing. I can tell you really enjoy soft pastels. Don’t be afraid of more layers. Although if I remember correctly, the lesson is on canson miteintes pastel paper which makes one be cautious on the layering because it doesn’t have as much tooth as pastelmat. A cotton bud or a torrillion/stump can be used to fill in the tiny dots of paper that are showing through. I loved doing mine too!
Sonia
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Thank you, Sonia!
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Thanks Sonia, you’re right I really did enjoy doing this. I must admit I didn’t follow Matt’s lesson all the way through, I just wanted to jump right in, and I was pleasantly surprised that it turned out as well as it did after the rather ugly stage it went through. I think I’ll try using a piece of Pastelmat paper for my next one.
Cheers Cathy
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Hi Cathy @cmhales7
I’ve found that most pieces of artwork go thru an ugly stage. You just have to have faith that it will turn out.
Terri Robichon
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I love the still life with the onions and garlic. You’ve really captured the texture of the crackling skin. Lovely!
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This is a work in progress. I am drawing an owl with a variety of pens and bee paper company drawing paper. I like the texture of this paper.
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I think that this is a very nice landscape. It evokes a sense of peace for me.
Thanks Emily, that’s very kind, I love trees. We have some really lovely gum trees in Australia, the bark on certain species can be particularly beautiful when it sheds off. I’m very impressed by your owl drawing, I also really love owls and hope to draw or paint one someday soon.
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