In this episode Colin talks about some experiments he's been doing. Some successful... some unsuccessful. He tells us about a new product he's been playing with and how it's lead to a new style of painting using just 5 Pastel Pencils.

We’re so pleased to announce that our popular e-book “Starting out with Pastel Pencils” has been revised and a Second Edition created!

The book has been updated with the most up to date information on Colin’s choice of materials and tips for the beginners starting out with Pastel Pencils.

In this episode we talk about Colin's sepia work and the particular colours he chose for doing this kind of work (in both watercolour and pastel). He also talks about the tips and techniques with sepia work including paper colour choices. We also discuss Copyright and particular copyright on artwork copied from Colin's lessons.

In this episode Colin offers his advice for those students that might have hit a plateau and are unsure on how to progress and get to the next level. Colin and Steve also discuss the process behind filming and releasing a class. Lastly, they talk about Colin's latest work and whether he would work with oil pastels.

In this episode Colin talks about whether doing commissions of friends or family changes the way you connect with the work. Do you feel the presence of the person there whilst your working?

A common and very valid question! Because Pastel Pencils are different to other colouring or graphite pencils, they are more difficult to sharpen. They have a chalk lead and generally a thicker casing to house this lead, this makes them tricky to sharpen. So what are your options?

In this week's episode we talk about why 2 brands have recently discontinued their harder stick pastel products. Both Faber-Castell and Caran d'Ache have discontinued their stick pastel ranges this Year.

In this episode Colin talks about his latest advanced shadow picture of an old man reading and we discuss just how impressive the fine details are.

In this episode Colin chats to us about finishing off the dog picture from last week and his new pictures in shadow that he's working on.

In this episode Colin talks about his current work in progress of a long hair (long fur?) dog. He describes his choice of paper and why following the reference picture made for some interesting choices in base colours.

Colin shares with us his finished fox landscape picture and how he created little details within the picture that created a sort of "story". We talk about the reasoning behind other small details he added and why he cut the bottom off mid way through.

In this week's episode we discuss how much detail you should draw in your outline drawings. We talk about animals, portraits and landscapes and how the level of detail changes depending on what you're drawing.

In this week's episode Colin talks about the picture he teased last week - a turtle! We discuss using the challenges he faced with this picture and how a PanPastel background didn't work out this time.

In this week's episode Colin talks to us about how the background went on the Wildcat painting. He talks about the choices of background colour and how unsure he was about how it would turn out! 

In this episode Colin talks about his latest picture of a Wild Cat and his next task of creating an impressionistic background with complimentary colours. 

In this episode Colin reveals the picture he was talking about last week and reveals a couple of pictures that never happened. We talk about these false starts and how he deals with things not always going to plan…

In this episode Colin talks about his latest Renoir inspired piece using PanPastels. He talks about how he modified the original Renoir picture and added his own spin on the landscape. We also talk about mindset towards a picture and how that can change over time.