On Day 2 of Pastel Live this year, we saw full-length painting demonstrations from Nancy Nowak, Linda Mutti, W. Truman Hosner, Laura Pollak, Eve Miller, and Vera Kavura. It was incredible to watch each pastel painting come to life.
There’s still some time to join us at PastelLive.com and catch the replays from earlier in the week!
For now, keep scrolling to see what you may have missed from Day 2 …
Highlights from Day 2 of Pastel Live
Nancy Nowak led a demo on how to add small figures to a pastel landscape in a way that “adds scale, life, and storytelling without getting lost in tiny details.” She explained how to suggest the human form with just the right shapes and proportions to make them feel natural.
Linda Mutti shared her process for creating luminous works that capture the spirit of the western landscape. She began with a watercolor underpainting and layer by layer, and applied pastel to refine the color and details, fine-tuning the composition until it reached a natural stopping point.
“What would possess an artist to leave the comfort of their studio to go outdoors and deal with changing light and movement?” Truman Hosner posed – and answered – this question in his plein air demonstration of using intuition as a painting evolves.
Laura Pollak shared the inspiration behind her abstract paintings: “Often when I go out into the world, I take lots of photographs of textures and patterns, and some of my main inspiration comes from below my feet.” For example, Laura explained how the sidewalks in Greece caught her attention, and her process for turning a fascination of lines into a pastel work of art.
“Get out there and paint with passion and purpose,” Eve Miller encouraged after her demo on how she starts – and finishes – a landscape painting in pastel.
Ukrainian artist Vera Kavura gave a demonstration on painting an impressionist still life of a wildflower bouquet. Vera says, “a single photo cannot reflect the shine of a flower’s petals; by painting a bouquet with pastel, I’m able to catch changes in the light and shadows, and even the movement of the petals.”
Of course, we ended the evening with the popular Cocktail Hour and Paint Along to socialize and continue to grow together. There’s still a little time left to join us for Pastel Live 2025, so visit PastelLive.com now and be a part of the moment-to-moment learning!
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