Pastel art course at Vaylats in the Lot

Our pastel course in the Couvent de Vaylats was a great success. We had four days and five nights in this lovely place to paint in the studio and outside in the grounds.The situation is ideal and next year I’m planning to run two more, Oil in May and Pastel in September 2025.

The first morning after breakfast we got to work on some still lives. I’d set up boxes, each with three simple images and encouraged the students to look hard at the colours in the light and in the shadow areas. An interesting composition can be made by integrating these shapes into the whole picture surface, making sure they are given their right values. We worked by building up the layers of pastel onto the pastelmat paper. cross hatching and refining the intensity of the colour.

The first afternoon was spent in the gardens, looking for subjects and sketching. I did a quick pastel sketch demonstration: 30 x 25cm on Sienna pastelmat paper. Luckily someone walked past in a splendid hat, at the right moment, I was able to mark in the size of the figure and work out the lighting as she advanced.

We had two models during the course, Frankie in her wedding dress and a girl from the restaurant. Frankie posed outside in the dappled light, which was a challenge, but people were open to possibilities and willing to break out of their comfort zones. With four days to paint, it felt possible to enjoy new subjects.

By the afternoon of the second day, most people has found the subjects they wished to work on. Some asked me to demonstrate how to tackle the trees. I chose a line of trees with fairly interesting shapes and worked on the contour geometrically.

You can see here the geometric contour drawn in orange pencil, a simplification of the shapes.

After this I work lightly over the whole surface, establishing the basic shapes of the light and shadow areas. The morning light was coming from the left. There was a subtle change in colour in the sky from light greenish blue towards purer darker blue. I decided whether I felt that the blocks of darker shadow shapes in the trees were cool or warm : veering towards blue or towards brown, this avoids too much monotony.

I always test my pastels on the paper before applying them. In this way I can see how they harmonise, and perhaps more importantly, verify if they are lighter or darker than the mid toned paper.

My group for this course were delightful. Four days gave us time to chat and to discuss our work and to relax in the evening over a glass of wine.

Our hosts at the Couvent made everything easy for us, So a big thanks to Inès and the rest of the team!