Contemporary Pastelists

Irina Klimova, the instructor of the online course "Create Your First Pastel Drawing", author of live and online pastel courses, is talking about the 9 most distinguished artists working in pastel.

It's a great opportunity to be inspired and amazed at the expressive powers of this medium. 

Pastel is somewhere in between painting and graphics. It is capable of demonstrating all the richness of painting and the spontaneity of a sketch at the same time. An artwork can be done with the artist drawing thin lines with the tip of the pastel stick and relying mostly on value relationships, or it can be done in a very painterly vivid manner with application of thick layers of pigment.

We have prepared an overview of contemporary pastelists who practise different approaches and techniques and yet are united by the love of soft pastels – a stunning medium, light, airy, and velvety.

Michael Norman is Vice-President of the Pastel Society UK. This artist is very attentive to outlines and value. The effects of light and shade are very clear in his artworks. Michael is bold in his technique and with colour. His approach is a combination of fine blending and energetic strokes. His artworks are very atmospheric, filled with light and air.

Felicity House is based at her studio in Dorset in the UK. She works primarily in a graphic manner; her style is unique, unusual, and distinctive. Her drawing is to a great extent about outlines – light, live and bold, dancing and living a life of their own. Aren't they charming? Felicity does not necessarily use colour all across the painting: she may just touch the major shapes with colour, thus creating a mood and engaging the viewer. She often leaves the secondary shapes just as a light pencil drawing.

Mike Beeman is from Banbury, England.  By the manner of layering pigment, his artworks can be called impressionistic. There are practically no outlines at all, they dissolve in the surrounding space and sometimes reappear again. Mike is a very versatile artist. He paints still lives, landscapes, and portraits, but his paintings of birds are especially fascinating. The lessons to learn from Mike are spontaneity and ease.

Rita Kirkman is from Texas in the USA. She has been using pastels since she was 11 years old.  This talented artist has gathered a whole collection of awards from national and international pastel societies. No matter the subject Rita is focused on capturing the light. Her series of paintings of animals are spectacular:  the animals' hair glows and sparkles in the sun. Rita achieves this effect by using a warm orange underpainting which makes the cold bluish hues that she uses for form shadows look very intense and vivid. Blue and orange are complementary colours so their combination makes a painting very striking.  Besides that, Rita often uses the unusual round format of surfaces for painting.

Ruben Belloso Adorna is a hyperrealist painter. He is famous for his fantastic highly-detailed large-scale portraits in pastel. One doesn't often see a pastel portrait as tall as 190 cm. How on Earth does he do that?!

Richard McKinley is a major figure in the pastel world! In 2017 Richard was elected President of International Association of Pastel Societies. He is in love with landscapes. The simple forest scenes he depicts are very fine and full of charm.

It's absolutely impossible to overlook this American pastelist. Karen is a painter through and through and an absolute workaholic. If you want to loosen up and move away from simply copying a photo reference, become bolder with colour and your strokes, you must visit her blog where she generously shares all her secrets and tricks. Karen never tires of experimenting with colour, subject matters, and composition and often makes interesting underpaintings. 

Tony Allain is a contemporary British pastelist.  His artworks are vibrant with energy. His colours are vivid, his compositions are bold and dynamic. He actively puts into practice the theory of complementary colours. One can often see the combination of orange and blue, red and green in his paintings. Another amazing thing: Tony sometimes uses a black marker for his darks. By applying big laconic shapes of colour, the painter achieves extreme intensity on a relatively small surface.

Zaria is not only a large-scale hyper-realistic landscape painter, but she also documents climate change with her drawings. During her work on the "Chasing the Light" series, she travelled to Antarctica to collect materials. The heroes of her works are unusual: they are water and ice. Zaria's glaciers strike the imagination. One can't help but wonder: is it possible to paint so in pastels?! Oh, yes!