Pastels For The Absolute Beginner | Rebecca de Mendonca
Pastels For Absolute Beginners | Rebecca de Mendonca
When I first got started in art, I turned to many different formats to help tech myself how to use the mediums I really loved using, YouTube, online tutorials, places like Craftsy which are now called Blueprint and of course books. With the popularity of digital books comes ease and speed of purchasing, however, I personally think you can never beat a traditional book and perhaps that is old fashioned of me. I particularly feel that with reference books, books of learning so to speak, I very much prefer them in their traditional form, I find them easier to flick through and find specific sections to follow along with etc.
As I have mentioned many times in my pastel reviews, pastel art is a genre of art I have admired since I became involved in art. In the right hands, the various levels of beauty that can be achieved by the medium is staggering, from the most flawless lifelike portraitures to colourful abstracts, peaceful landscapes etc. It is because of the mediums versatility that I have been drawn to it but I have to admit, I have not found it the easiest medium to work with, but I have found it incredibly enjoyable learning and trying.
One such source that I really wish I found when I first started out with pastels is “Pastels For The Absolute Beginner” by Rebecca de Mendonca, hopefully if you are new to the pastel medium, this review can save you a lot of wasted time or if you have been working in pastels for a while, this review may help you refine the skills you have already developed.
About The Author
Rebecca de Mendonça is a huge name in the pastel world and to be honest her art and portfolio speaks for itself. Rebecca is based near Exeter in Devon which explains some of the beautiful landscape and ocean work displayed throughout this beautiful book.
A lot of Rebeccas work focuses around landscapes, portraiture and especially equestrian for which she is an Associate Member of the Society of Equestrian. Rebecca has also exhibited work in London Mall Galleries, in 2013 she Co-Founded the New Pastel School and as if any of that wasn’t impressive enough, Rebecca has taken portrait commissions of English National Ballet Dancers and actors from Londons West End.
Contents
Its always very difficult reviewing books, trying to portray the contents of the book and how it will benefit you the reader but without giving too much information to the extent the book doesn’t make sales as this is the last thing in the world I would want to do.
“Pastels For The Absolute Beginner” is laid out perfectly, I have purchased reference books before and some of them in my opinion have been laid out back to front. They talk about the materials, paper etc at the back of the book where in my opinion, as you read the book, this information ideally should be at the front. If you consider that the individual who has purchased the book intends to follow along so to speak, the format in which an artist would set up should be in my opinion the way such a book should be formatted, especially a book designed for beginners and this is absolutely the case with “Pastels For the Absolute Beginner”.
Introduction
Materials
Setting Up Your Workspace
Starting To Draw
Pastel Techniques
Colour
Landscapes
Life In Your Paintings
Composition
Index
As you can see from the contents list above, everything you are going to need to know as a beginner to pastels is covered. Of course as you learn and grow, more and more knowledge will be developed, however, Rebecca de Mendonca’s “Pastels For The Absolute Beginner” is an exceptional place to start as a beginner to pastels.
Introduction
This section of the book is pretty self explanatory, Rebecca briefly covers what you can hope to achieve from using the book. I think one phrase in this introductory section that I feel sums up what Rebecca is hoping to achieve with her book
As the book progresses you will find ways of working that feel right, and if you keep practising, you will develop a style that is your own. Be brave and take risks.
I think for me personal, this phrase shows the mind set of Rebecca and that mind set is to arm students with the basics and fundamentals, then encouraging fledgling artist to grow and develop their own artists signatures.
Materials
In this section of the book, Rebecca takes the reader through literally everything someone new to pastels would need to know about.
First the book explains the various different pastels available to you as a new pastel artist, the only pastel format not listed is PanPastels, there could be any number of reasons why PanPastels don’t feature in the book from Pan Pastels not released or popular at the time the book was written or simply a side of the medium Rebecca doesn’t or didn’t use. Nevertheless, Rebecca talks in detail about the differences between the three prominent pastel mediums soft, hard and pastel pencils.
Next Rebecca talks about the wide range a various paper surfaces for Pastel use and I think this is such an important part of the book. Regardless of the medium, all artists will shout to they are blue in the face about the importance of the surface you use. As a reviewer myself, I completely concur with this fact about art, I have reviewed products that are terrible on one paper and a completely transformed product on another paper. So this subsection of the Materials is very important to read and understand.
Finally Rebecca goes through tools that will help you as a pastel artist, just some simple tools you may not think of at first, but they will absolutely make your life that wee bit easier knowing what they are and what they are used for.
Setting Up Your Workspace
This is a small part of the book but by no means any less important than some of the others. Rebecca in this section explains about lighting, natural light, using easels as opposed to working on a flat table surface.
Starting To Draw
This next section is such a well put together part of the book and really goes into important information such as sketching out your work and the materials to use for this, understanding tonal values, lights and darks, creating light and shadow.
Pastel Techniques
I think if I had to describe this section of the book, I would describe is as the bread and butter of the book. In this section of the book, Rebecca talks about the various different pastel strokes, smudging and blending colours together using the smudging.
The Bauble effect to help achieve texture and light on a metallic surface, hatching and cross-hatching, using varied pressue on different pastels and the effects it creates and the many different textures that can be created.
Using pastel pencils for drawing, twisting techniques to create different textures. This section starts to lay down the basics you will need for the following sections in the book and help you hone your own pastel skills.
Colour
No matter what medium you use, learning and trying to understand colour is so important. Most artists if not all artist will have a colour wheel to help them along the way, but when you read a book such as “Pastels For The Absolute Beginner” helps to really see a visual understanding of colour and how using it right can aid you in creating all manner of effects.
Landscapes
This section introduces the use of the techniques from the previous sections and shows you how to implement them into creating beautiful landscapes. Now apart from actually learning incredibly valuable tips and techniques with pastels, we get to see some of the beautiful pastel art that Rebecca creates.
Within the landscape section you will learn the illusion of creating rocks, how the land lays, tonal contrasts and sharp ages. You can follow along with the examples and for each follow along exercise there is a list of materials that you will need to follow along with.
This section of the book also covers skies, creating clouds, water, creating waves and ocean spray, dramatic sky lines, reflection in water, fast flowing water over rocks. Rebecca also covers creating trees which is something I am always trying to teach myself regardless of the medium, I think it is a beautiful aspect of art and love trying to master it. Here you will also learn how to create leaves on trees and more importantly, create the depth required to paint a three dimensional tree in the form of lighting.
Life In Your Paintings
This part of Rebeccas book looks at helping you as a beginner to the pastel medium, make you pet portraits and human portraits look real, from adding the small things like tattoos, shoes, the eyes etc that instil such realism.
This part of the book as with the previous showcases some of the most beautiful pastel paintings from Rebecca which in my opinion is huge inspirational.
Composition
This final section of the book explains a part of art that is over looked all too often, I myself very rarely think of composition but it is actually such an important part of creating an eye catching work or art and drawing the viewers eye into the painting.
Pastels For The Absolute Beginner Pricing
Here in the UK on Amazon to get a copy of this amazing book it will cost you £8.99
On Amazon in the US, Pastels For The Absolute Beginner will cost you $13.59
For those of you in Europe this wonderful book will cost approximately €13.59
Pastels For The Absolute Beginner Conclusion
I truly wish I had this book when I first decided I wanted to try my hand at pastels. I throughly enjoyed reading and most importantly learning from this amazing book “Pastels For The Absolute Beginner” by Rebecca de Mendonca.
Its important to note that this books is aimed at beginners as the title suggests, however, I have been using pastels for about a year or so now and the stuff I have learnt from reviewing the book is phenomenal. I definitely would not call myself a beginner to pastels and absolutely nowhere near an expert, but I would say that despite this book being aimed at beginners, I would say the demographic is larger than beginner and happily learn from book.
From start to finish, Rebecca’s book is a sensation for the eyes, the book is filled with beautiful works of art from Rebecca as a way to help you visually learn along side with easy to follow instructional paragraphs in-between the art.
I reviewed the Caran d’Ache Pastel Pencils quite a while ago and in helping to demonstrate the pencils, I painted a landscape piece from a spot our family visit every year in the Lake District. I was quite happy with the work I done at the time, but after reading “Pastels For The Absolute Beginner” by Rebecca de Mendonca I can see the mistakes I made, I can see the tips and techniques I have learnt and where in the painting they would have improved the art.
If you are interested in learning more about Pastels, be it soft pastels, hard pastels or pastel pencils or if you have been turning your hand at pastels for a while now and feel like you could do with a little bit of help to take your paintings to the next level, I highly recommend this amazing book by Rebecca de Mendonca.
You can find out much more about Rebecca by following the link to her website, if you would like to purchase this amazing book you can do so by either purchasing from Rebecca’s website or via Amazon which I have also linked.
