It’s time for you to shine: we would love you to join us for our next convivial online painting session, with Rebecca de Mendonça. It will be full of tips and techniques for getting the most out of your pastels. Using a mixture of charcoal, soft pastel, hard pastel and pastel pencil, Rebecca will work on simple pastel paper to show how you can create the drama of lights against darks, and capture shine and reflected colour.
As it is getting difficult at the moment to buy some surfaces to work on, and also hard to go out and get inspired, Rebecca goes back to the basics of working on paper, and using objects found at home. She shows how you can capture smooth textures, from glazed pottery and polished silverware, to fresh fruit. She will explain how to set out your drawing, get the proportions right, and how you can adapt your reference to enhance composition and flow. Rebecca will also look at different surfaces for trying this sort of work.
This session is suitable for beginners and more experienced students, whether you have used pastels before or not. A reference photograph is provided. You can ask questions during the demonstration, and the video will be available to watch afterwards, so that you can have a go yourself. Once you register, you will have access to the source photo.
As the demonstration will be full of tips and information, and as Rebecca will be working quite quickly, we would advise you to watch the session first, before doing the piece in your own time. To register for the session, please click here.
When you register for the session you will be asked for a donation. Our Zoom painting demonstrations do take quite a bit of time in preparation and administration and your support is very much appreciated. With your generosity we can plan and run further sessions and, more importantly, provide a regular meeting place for creativity, camaraderie and fun. We hope that you enjoy the international, online painting community that we have created.
After successful registration you will be provided with two links. One is the Zoom link for you to join the session. The other is a link to a copy of the photograph that you will paint; and to Rebecca’s notes which include a list of equipment and colours for your palette.
After the event, you are invited to email us with your painting to add to our online gallery. We will also send you a link to an edited video of the session, to enable to you revisit Rebecca’s step-by-step teaching, and paint along in your own time. That link again: please click here.
To give you an idea of Rebecca’s wonderful artist skills and teaching style, please watch the video below of one of her recent video sessions with the Watermill. The subject was sunlight on a river. Please just click here to view the video.