Art Instruction: Landscape Painting in Pastels

Pastel Landscapes by Deborah Christensen Secor

Deborah Secor is publishing a book online via a blog called Landscape Painting in Pastels.

Deborah is well known to many in the pastel world. Besides being a practising pastel artist, she's also a pastel art tutor, writes for the Pastel Journal and was for some time a very popular Moderator of the Pastels Forum on Wet Canvas.

Her art instruction book is not available in traditional print format and Deborah has, very generously, decided to make it available for free. Part of it is based on articles she has written for and published in the Pastel Journal.

I contemplated selling this book, but in the final analysis I decided that it was better to give. Jesus tells us, "Freely you have received, freely give." So I will. I hope you enjoy and benefit from it.

Note that information contained in the blog may be downloaded for personal use only. Readers are forbidden to reproduce, republish, redistribute, or resell any materials from this weblog in either machine-readable form or any other form without specific written permission of the author. For permissions and other copyright-related questions, please email your question to: deb@deborahsecor.com

So if you want to read her book you need to follow her blog - and I recommend a subscription. Needless to say this blog has been instantly added to my Google Reader and the tutor section of the blogroll in the ruight hand column of this blog! :)

Book content

Deborah's book will cover the following topics. One chapter per week will be posted. Those chapters shown in blue are already live.

Landscapes in Pastels

Section 1 Materials

Chapter 1 Pastels and Other Materials
Chapter 2 Surfaces and Effects
Chapter 3 Getting Started
Chapter 4 Letting Value Lead

Section 2 Landscape Subjects

Chapter 5 Aerial Perspective
Chapter 6 Mountains
Chapter 7 Sky
Chapter 8 Clouds
Chapter 9 Night
Chapter 10 Sunrise, Sunset
Chapter 11 Trees
Chapter 12 Foliage
Chapter 13 Foregrounds
Chapter 14 Rocks
Chapter 15 Shadows
Chapter 16 Water and Reflections
Chapter 17 Gardens
Chapter 18 Snow

Section 3 Color

Chapter 19 Color Theory
Chapter 20 Color Experiments
Chapter 21 The Green Problem
Chapter 22 White Done Right
Chapter 23 The Photograph Problem

Section 4 Experiments

Chapter 24 Free Yourself of the Photo
Chapter 25 Value and Color
Chapter 26 Make a Puzzle Painting
Chapter 27 Value/Color Chart
Chapter 28 Imagine a Painting
Chapter 29 Colored Grounds
Chapter 30 Limit your Palette
Chapter 31 Limit Time and Palette
Chapter 32 20-Stroke Painting
Chapter 33 Temperature

Section 5 Moving On

Chapter 34 From Studio to Plein Air
Chapter 35 Criticize Your Work

If you appreciate what Deborah is doing with this blog can I suggest you leave a comment on her blog and let her know.

Note: Deborah Secor's paintings have been selected for inclusion in several books devoted to the pastel medium: The Pastel Painter’s Solution Book; Pure Color: The Best of Pastel; Painting With Pastels, by Maggie Price. She aso has two video workshops available on DVD or streaming at Artists Network TV: Get Started in Pastels: Deborah Secor Paints the Landscape and Painting Outdoor Shadows in Pastel with Deborah Secor.