Cliff Austin - "Landscape Painting in Pastels from Photographs"
Saturday, November 5, 2022 -- 9am - 3pm
First Presbyterian Church of Littleton 
1609 W. Littleton Blvd.
Littleton, CO 80120

The class included discussing:

The elements and principles of painting.

•    - Drawing
  ​     accurately
•    - Demo
     - Lets Paint

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Cliff Austin with his 2022 Plein Air Professional 
​Division 3rd place work, "Stages"

The elements of painting are:

• Line
• Direction
• Shape
• Size
• Color
• Value
• Texture

The principles of painting:

• Balance
• Unity
• Symmetry
• Harmony
• Emphasis
• Contrast
• Rhythm 

Focus on just a few elements will help establish a base line to build from.Focus on 3 elements:

• Shape
• Value
• ​Edges

and 3 principles:

• Contrast
• Emphasis
• Rhythm

​>> Download Cliff's Bio

"Colorful Colorado" 14x18 Oil - $1100

"Smokey Sky" 16x12 Oil - $850

"Morning Spilling Over" 16x20 Oil $1350

Process:

• Paint from darks shapes to establish the first shape (vertical shapes) thin and transparent, then
• Paint the medium value (flat ground) then the lightest value with the thickest light value paint.

 
This is the starting point. From here you can add to the design / composition / story.

• Shape – large against small   |
• Value – light against dark       >   contrast
• Edge – soft verses hard          |

 
Emphasize the center of interest and add rhythm to make it interesting.

Materials:

• Several 9x12 or 11x14 Uart 400 paper or panels to paint on. 
  If using paper bring a backing - matt board or drawing support to tape the paper to.
  
• Viva paper towels and waste bag to transport used towels and waste.
  
• Pastels paints: Primarily, Soft Pastels, anything you have is fine. I recommend Terry Ludwig and Sennelier 30 half stick set and a small set of Hard pastels like Prismacolor NuPastel. Do not go and buy a ton of colors. Just bring what you have.
  
• Bring 2-3 panels or pastel paper size 9x12 or 11x14, 2 for you to work on and 1 for a scratch pad