Clint Howard didn’t pick up pastels seriously until 2023. He’s already an IAPS Master Circle designee — and last month, he won the Founders Award in the Pastel 100 competition. Let that sink in.
What looks like an overnight success is actually anything but. Clint spent nearly a decade as a preacher, then 15 years in web and graphic design — work that quietly built the color sense and compositional instincts now driving his pastel landscape art. When a layoff gave him the time to paint in earnest, he was ready. More than ready.
Growing up in the Colorado Rockies and now living near the Ozark Mountains in North Arkansas, Clint paints the kind of landscapes he knows in his bones. His style leans toward tonalism — understated, atmospheric, deceptively quiet. His signature move? A neutral palette where, as he puts it, “the secret is in the grays.” Get those right, and the bold colors sing.
His pastel painting method is equally no-nonsense. He paints small — 9 x 12 inches or under — nearly every day. Since plein air time is scarce, he takes and manipulates his own reference photos on his phone to lock in composition and light before ever approaching the easel. He calls it logging “dust miles.” Consistent, unglamorous, daily effort. It’s working.
Clint isn’t keeping any of it to himself, either. He co-founded the Pastel Workshop program with Greg Stone, built a thriving YouTube channel around it, and grown a large online community dedicated to pastel fundamentals. The guy teaches the way he paints — with clarity and generosity.
The best part? You can paint right alongside him. Clint Howard is teaching at this year’s Plein Air Convention in the Ozarks, May 14–18, 2026. Don’t miss it.
You can also listen in as Pastel Podcast hosts Lisa Skelley and Kari Stober talk to Clint Howard more about his pastel painting techniques, including working from reference photos, atmospheric perspective, tonalism, painting water and reflections, and capturing light in landscape painting.
