Pastel Podcast Episode 12: Liz Haywood-Sullivan
Episode focus
Liz Haywood Sullivan is a New England landscape pastel artist known for luminous skies, coastlines, and water, with a style built on dramatic lighting, strong contrasts, and graphic composition. In this conversation, she shares her journey from a design career into fine art full-time, the methods behind her distinctive look, and the practical foundations she teaches students so they can break through plateaus.
Quick highlights
- How pastel “found her” and why she narrowed her focus to pastel landscape early
- Why skies and water naturally belong together in landscape painting
- How design training shaped her composition and clarity of structure
- Her teaching method (“Good Bones”): thumbnails, value studies, and viewfinder scaling
- Value underpainting before color, and how to color mix with layered pastels
- Plein air vs. studio: what to do when weather or health makes plein air harder
- What beginners should buy first: sampler sets, neutral strategies, and pastel hardness balance
- Pastel societies: why community matters for learning, education, and confidence
Who is Liz Haywood Sullivan?
Liz is a former president of the International Association of Pastel Societies (IAPS), and she holds top honors including Master Pastelist status with the Pastel Society of America and the eminent pastels designation.
She is also the author of the instructional book Painting Brilliant Skies and Water in Pastel, described as a foundational pastel learning resource by many artists in the community.
From design to fine art: how pastel became the lifelong medium
Liz described her path as a “leap of faith.” Even while working in design, she kept drawing and gravitated toward artistic work like architectural illustrations and presentation drawings. When her design business shifted, and the possibility of moving into fine art became real, she chose that direction.
The most important turning point was that pastel felt like more than just a new medium. She took a pastel class on a vacation in New Mexico, at an arts institute in Taos, and she fell in love with how immediate and tactile the medium felt. Liz explained that pastel is both a drawing and painting medium, and that she is naturally drawn to hand-driven, sensory making.
She also chose a focused direction from the beginning: pastel landscapes. She intentionally stayed away from figurative work, still life, and florals, believing she could reach true mastery by narrowing her trajectory early. That decision shaped everything that followed.
Why skies and water: a powerful artistic pairing
Liz’s subject choices are not random. She grew up in a natural landscape where the sky was something people noticed and talked about constantly. In Rochester, New York, she emphasized that the best skies are often in November, where clouds and atmosphere can be extraordinarily dramatic.
She also explained a key relationship that makes skies and water feel inseparable: in a landscape that includes water, water magnifies the sky. The reflections carry sky color and sky behavior, so the sky and water reinforce each other visually.
This is one reason her work is so associated with strong lighting and graphic composition. She doesn’t just paint a scene; she builds a structured relationship between the sky, the water surface, and the shapes in between.
How her style developed: from graphic design to pastel clarity
Liz’s distinctive approach to composition is influenced by her graphic design training. She shared memories of a rigorous, foundational education in design principles. Her freshman-year graphic design teacher, who learned from Bauhaus methods, required structured exercises using cut-out color paper and systematic composition slicing.
These assignments trained her to think in terms of:
- color relationships rather than isolated hues
- shape and space rather than purely “pretty” painting
- volume, form, line, and perspective as required tools
Liz connected this to color relativity and contrast, referencing the idea commonly discussed through Joseph Albers and the “law of simultaneous contrast.” Her point for artists: the same color can behave differently depending on what surrounds it, so composition and adjacency are not optional. They are the medium.
Her teaching philosophy: “Good Bones” and the value-first path
Liz teaches pastel, but not in a way that skips the foundation. She said she does not want to teach people how to draw as an end in itself. Instead, she brings core drawing thinking into painting through a method she calls Good Bones.
“Good Bones” workflow (as she describes it)
- Thumbnail sketch to establish the idea and composition quickly
- Value study to focus on light and dark structure
- Break the scene into abstract shapes and forms before scaling up
- Scale up onto your paper or canvas using a viewfinder or a clear measurement method
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- Liz described the viewfinder as a dot-connecting tool: lining things up so the drawing translates accurately to the support.
- Underpainting with emphasis on value, not color
- Add color later, using pastel layering and transitions to bring warmth and coolness forward and back
A repeated theme in her teaching: artists often plateau because they are technically proficient with pastel material but missing foundational design structures like shape, form, perspective, and basic value reasoning.
Color mixing in pastel: you don’t have to own every color
One of the most practical parts of Liz’s guidance was her explanation of pastel color mixing. She emphasized that students sometimes assume they need a huge range of pre-mixed pastel colors. Her advice: you can create “new” colors by layering pastelsand matching value.
Liz’s demonstration concept was simple: choose pastels with similar value, then layer them lightly so you get an optical blend. If you squint to unify values, the blended area begins to behave like a single coherent color.
Her core message for painters:
- Value compatibility matters more than exact pigment identity.
- Layering can create cool-warm shifts and push-pull distance effects.
- Pastel layering works best when you learn how to handle softness and pressure so edges and transitions stay intentional.
She also clarified that underpainting should start with value because it gives you the structure needed for later color shifts. Color becomes the “system” you apply rather than the first thing you paint.
What pastel landscapes require: neutrals and the “real” palette
When discussing what actually makes a landscape painting work, Liz stated an idea that many beginners need to hear: bright colors sell, but they do not complete the painting.
She advised that you can get trapped buying color sets that look exciting but leave out the neutrals and value range a landscape requires.
Her recommendation centers on building a landscape-capable starter set using:
- color families (reds, yellows, greens, browns, purples, blues)
- neutrals by value (a light-to-dark neutral progression)
She noted that if you are painting in water or misty conditions, muted neutrals become the stage where your color can “pop.” Neutrals create atmospheric control.
How she approaches plein air vs. studio work
Liz was candid about plein air time in her specific environment. She explained that health concerns in her region make plein air less frequent, because Lyme disease is a prevalent risk. Instead, she does extensive observation, photography-based work, and color correction.
Still, she shared a studio-to-outside learning strategy that helps artists develop “cloud fluency” even when they cannot paint outside for long periods:
- Use minimal drawing materials like white chalk and charcoal
- Do short studies (for example, 5 to 10 minutes) focused on light-dark shapes rather than color
- Repeat cloud chasing studies to build muscle memory for how cloud passages behave
Liz highlighted that this kind of practice reduces pressure. If the sketch is only a sketch, the joy returns and judgment disappears. That “no judgment zone” is not just emotional support, it is a practical learning approach because it helps you keep moving, noticing, and refining.
Beginner guidance: what to buy first and how to avoid costly mistakes
Liz’s beginner advice is grounded in experience, not theory. She recommended starting with a balanced range of hardness and softness, and she pushed back against buying full sets too early.
Her starter strategy for pastel materials
- Use sampler sets from reputable suppliers so you learn how your hand interacts with different pastels
- Choose a base line that is not too hard and not too soft (she referenced Unison as a “middle” option many students can work with)
- Include some harder drawing sticks to tighten focal areas and manipulate edges
- Include softer pastels for smoother transitions, underlayers, and building atmosphere
- Build a real neutral set by value range
She also warned: if you have a heavy hand, do not assume every soft pastel will work for you. Soft pastels can become overly demanding and uncontrollable if your pressure is strong. Samplers prevent that mismatch.
Pastel societies: how community accelerates learning
Liz emphasized how important it is to join a pastel society, especially if you are worried you are not “good enough.” She described community as encouraging, open, and not overly hierarchical. Pastel artists share freely, and learning opportunities often surface through society networks.
She described pastel societies as a conduit for education: finding workshops, teachers, classes, and opportunities through outlets like the Pastel Journal magazine and society education pipelines.
She also pointed out that COVID-era online options made societies more accessible. Even when in-person returns, the ability to join online meetings lowers the barrier to entry.
Teaching and travel: pastel as a universal language
Liz shared that her role in IAPS took her to teaching opportunities around the world. She taught pastel workshops for art teachers and described pastel as a universal language: you can point to something, demonstrate, and have meaningful learning even when language differences exist. She also said that interpreters were available, but much of the instruction was visual and intuitive.
She continues to teach workshops across the United States and internationally, including plans connected to Italy and places with extraordinary atmosphere, such as Venice and the Alps region.
Where to follow Liz Haywood Sullivan
Liz recommended staying connected through her website and newsletter. She sends the newsletter a handful of times per year, with content that includes articles, live painting episodes, and deeper instructional material like “epiphany” problem-solving.
She also noted that she does not rely heavily on social media. For her, the newsletter is where she shares ongoing learning and instructional updates.
Key takeaways to practice this week
- Do value first: build strong light-dark structure before worrying about color.
- Use thumbnails: compress the scene into big shapes to avoid getting lost in detail.
- Practice color mixing through value: layer pastels that share similar value.
- Don’t skip neutrals: landscapes require value-muted supports so your color can pop.
- Study clouds as shapes and edges: short, repeated studies build fluency without pressure.
- Join a pastel society: learning opportunities and encouragement often come through community.
The podcast is sponsored by the Pastel Today newsletter from Streamline Publishing, inc.
Related Links from this episode of the Pastel Podcast:
- Sullivan’s Website
- Lisa Skelly, Huse Skelly Gallery
- International Association of Pastel Societies
- Pastel Today free e-newsletter
- Pastel Live Online Conference
