WEDNESDAY, THURSDAY, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12-14, 9 AM-4 PM

Skillful use of complementary colors is a very important concept to master as an artist. It’s right up there with understanding values and composition as a foundation for creating satisfying pastel paintings that hold the attention of the viewer.

The pastel medium offers an incredible range of every possible color from full strength high chroma shades to already mixed blends of complementary colors including warm and cool shades of gray. You could buy every shade of every color of every brand without ever learning to mix you own. But it’s way more fun to see what new colors you can create from what you already have.

Every pair of complementary colors has a warm and a cool shade. We will take a pair of complementary colors each day and learn to work with them by first making color swatches of the complementary colors you have in your kit. You’ll learn to mix and layer them, first with full strength color, then softly tonal, warm against cool, in a series of experiments where you end up achieving beautiful modulations of color.

Bring your pastel kits with whatever brands, colors and shades of pastels you have.

ABOUT CHRIS